Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:42 pm on 12 July 2022.
Diolch, Llywydd. In conclusion, I would like to thank Members for their support, I hope, in voting for these. I'm very disappointed, but not surprised, that the Tories don't see fit to support amendments designed to protect tenants' rights—no surprise there, really. Although it is disappointing that we can't get consensus on this.
Llywydd, we are now very nearly there in terms of implementation of the renting homes Act. I will shortly be making three further implementation SIs, which, again, are technical in nature, and are being made via the Senedd's negative procedure, so will not be subject to Senedd debate, and I'll publish a further written statement explaining the purpose and effect of these.
As I mentioned earlier, I will also shortly be relaying the consequential amendments SI with the necessary corrections made to that instrument, hopefully later this week, so that we can debate that last SI in September. And just to confirm that there will be no impact on the implementation date as a result of the withdrawal of the consequential amendments regulations, nor is there any impact on the three that are here today, because they're stand-alone SIs implementing different parts of the renting homes Act.
And then, just addressing some of the issues that Members have raised in particular on these SIs: housing association tenancy regulations are about a relatively small sub-set of tenancies, and the regulations are about preserving the existing arrangements, Janet, and not about changing them. I would have thought you'd welcome that, actually. These particular amendments are about preserving the existing arrangements, and not having the renting homes Act bite on those existing arrangements.
On six-month notices, our principle is that someone not at fault should have at least six months' notice of possession. Schedule 8A sets out some limited exceptions, for example, where there is a service occupancy for employment purposes only.
In terms of private landlords threatening to leave the sector, this is something that's raised with me every single time we discuss housing. It's just no worse here than it is anywhere else. Interestingly, the UK media are reporting a similar anticipated exodus of private landlords in England as a result of the house price rises there, although, of course, in England it's impossible to know, because they don't actually have an equivalent to Rent Smart Wales. And so, we're actually in a better position here, because we do have contact with all our landlords, and we know where they are.
Just in terms of the stakeholders that we've engaged with, they include the National Residential Landlords Association, Propertymark and Community Housing Cymru, representing associations. My officials attend regular meetings with those bodies, and obviously NRLA and Propertymark are in the PRS. On the consultation point, the regulations focus primarily on preserving and protecting existing rights, so the consultation is on the wider Act.
Rent Smart Wales data does not show landlords leaving the market in significant numbers actually. There is a slight drop, but not more than anticipated by Rent Smart Wales at this time of year. They think that it's to do with some landlords being late in registering, and so on. There are more significant drops in a few tourist hotspots, but we can't be really sure if they've flipped to short-term holiday lets, so we're obviously keeping a close eye on that.
Mabon's contribution was extremely wide-ranging about the housing crisis more generally, rather than on these SIs in particular, and obviously, the whole point of the renting homes Act is to address some of the issues there. Of course, we have a 20,000 low-carbon social homes target to anticipate the supply and demand issue. I'm fully aware of the phosphate issue and there will be a summit on the first day of the Royal Welsh in the summer to see if we can reach a compromise across all of the very difficult issues that affect that. But those are not specific to these SIs, Llywydd, they're just more general points.
In drawing this to a close, I urge Members to support the regulations. They are largely technical in nature. As I say, I will shortly be making the further implementation SIs, which are the commencement proceedings, and therefore the implementation of the Act on 1 December is not affected. Diolch.