9. The Council Tax (Long-term Empty Dwellings and Dwellings Occupied Periodically) (Wales) Regulations 2022

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:41 pm on 22 March 2022.

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Photo of Mabon ap Gwynfor Mabon ap Gwynfor Plaid Cymru 4:41, 22 March 2022

(Translated)

Well, everyone here will be aware of the glory of Dwyfor Meirionydd, the constituency that I am privileged to represent. But, while visitors enjoy the incredible beauty of the region, the truth is that families have to scrape a living there, with income per capita among the lowest in this state and the value of homes having shot up. Indeed, we recently heard about a hut on the beach in Abersoch selling for £200,000. My office is deluged at the moment with people contacting me seeking support in relation to housing: young parents who are homeless; parents working in the public sector or the private sector, earning an income but who are homeless; babies being brought up in inappropriate properties, with mothers, more often than not, having to carry the pram up with their shopping and the baby to go up to a damp bedroom—housing that is entirely inappropriate for them. From Aberdovey, Beddgelert, Criccieth, Morfa Nefyn and every other community in between, one in four homes in many of these communities, and on occasion one in two houses, are vacant for most of the year, whilst these families, bringing up their children in inappropriate accommodation, full with grandparents and other members of the wider family, are having to look at these homes sitting empty.

As Llyr said, it is a crisis and it is entirely immoral. We must take steps to resolve this, and I speak on behalf of every one of these people I have seen over the past few weeks who are living in inappropriate accommodation or are homeless, and I welcome any steps brought forward in order to seek to address his huge inequality and injustice.