I have long supported rent controls and I back any move to address the poverty caused by unreasonable rent increases. The UK's housing market has been in crisis for decades. The fundamental foundations of the system have been broken. The idea that everybody should be entitled to a roof over their head, like so many other areas of our economy, is now subordinated to the whims of market forces and the pursuit of profit.

When Margaret Thatcher came to power her Government withdrew funding for councils to build economically productive housing, instead choosing to support rents and mortgages instead. The disastrous right-to-buy further entrenched market dogma into UK housing policy. Most of the houses sold under this policy were never replaced. It represented a mass sell-off of state assets into the private sector. This ripped up decades of mainstream political agreement on the need for councils to provide social housing.

Starting with Clement Attlee's Labour Government, the state provided funding to councils to invest in increasing social housing and, for decades, hundreds of thousands of social rented houses were built on average every year. Economically, the justification was obvious, mass scale home building meant that house prices and rents remained affordable because of high supply. When housing is viewed as a financial investment, the opposite is true. There is pressure to restrict supply in order to drive prices up, maximizing the profits of those who own the assets. Where house building does take place, it is now largely left to private property developers whose prime motive is to make profit for their shareholders.

The rapid and unsustainable growth of a class of buy-to-let landlords since the 1980s has not only undone much of the progress in conditions of tenants but has driven an explosion in house prices. The increased prices combined with the low supply lead to ever-increasing rents. Rent controls offer one of the most potent tools we have to address this situation. They aren't without precedent, they are fairly common across Europe. In 2016 the Scottish Government brought in the power to impose controls on rents, and in Wales we must learn the lessons of the failings of the Scottish approach, which were caused by a disappointing timidity and lack of ambition. The aim of rent control should be, first and foremost, to protect tenants. As a longer term aim, it should discourage the hoarding of property by buy-to-let landlords and increase those looking to sell. This will provide an increase in supply, allowing tenants to buy their own houses. The Welsh Government's ongoing expansion of social housing will ensure a home for those who do not wish to buy or who remain unable to, and I look forward to the White Paper and I'm pleased the Welsh Government will be embracing rent controls, as promised in the manifesto. The effects of the housing crisis are felt most acutely by the young and the working class. If we fail to act, we will consign tomorrow's young to a future without housing security. Diolch.