Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:51 pm on 10 May 2022.
I completely agree, Jenny. In terms of the new builds, of course, we will be bringing part L regulation changes through very shortly. We've already changed what's called the DQL for new-build social to carbon passive or carbon neutral, so again, incentivising the industry to build to that. We're also, of course, allowing social landlords to buy off plan for new build, incentivising our builders to build all their houses to that in the hope that they'll be able to sell more of them off plan to the big registered social landlords and councils. That is happening across Wales.
In terms of the stick, implementing the renting homes Act will have some very big effects on making sure that private-sector landlords have to have a home fit for purpose. But I agree with you about incentivising with loans; we are looking to see what we can do to do that. One of the things we're doing is trying to guarantee, as I said, with the leasing schemes—. First of all, we're trying to make sure that all the landlords know about it. We've been using Rent Smart Wales to put communications out. I think it is quite a big carrot to have that income guaranteed to you with no vacancies or whatever for the whole period of the time you bring it across, and of course to have the home brought up to standard. I do want to encourage everyone to get awareness of that out, so when we do encounter tenants in that housing, I always think it's worth asking them whether their landlord is aware of that scheme. Lots of them aren't, so I've been surprised at people not being aware.
In terms of sticks, we are looking to see what can be done in conjunction with the UK Government, actually, about improving some of this. The UK Government has put some quality standards on the PRS, but unfortunately, it does tend to be that you just have to be at EPC E without any of the incentives. As I said, I'm very keen to avoid some of the unintended consequences of that, particularly in the inner cities where some of the biggest, oldest housing stock is. It would be very hard to replace that quickly, for multigenerational families in particular. Yours and my constituencies are particularly replete with housing of that sort.
But I'm keen to have that conversation. I'm meeting the Residential Landlords Association soon; we'll continue that conversation with them. But in the meantime, setting the gold standard, if you like, for housing in Wales with social housing is very much where we're at with this statement. We were told we couldn't do it the first time, and we've done it, so I'm sure I'm going to be told I can't do it this time, and I'm pretty convinced we will be able to do it again. My predecessor in post was Rebecca Evans, actually, and I know she had very long conversations about the inability of us to do it, and we've done it anyway. So, that's where we are, but I'm happy to have individual conversations with you, too, Jenny, about constituency issues.