9. What steps will the Government take to help tenants during the current cost-of-living crisis? OQ58408

Since November 2021, we've announced £380 million funding to help Welsh households manage the cost-of-living crisis. Leasing Scheme Wales is improving access to longer term affordable private rented sector housing. An additional £6 million homelessness prevention fund has been provided to local authorities to help sustain tenancies for people and avoid homelessness.

I thank the Minister for stepping in at the last moment. May I extend my best wishes to the Minister for a speedy recovery too?

Tenants and housing associations alike are extremely concerned about the next few months and find it difficult to forward plan and to fund without assurance as to the rates of benefits. The noises made by Liz Truss, the new Prime Minister, suggest that benefits may be cut, and that is extremely concerning, particularly because rents are paid through the universal credit system, and of course the local housing allowance has been frozen since 2020. What discussions, therefore, have you had with the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in London? And have you brought pressure to bear on her and the new Prime Minister to ensure that benefit levels increase in order to meet the increase in living costs, particularly rents, and that they also increase to increase the local housing allowance level?

Thank you. You raise a very important point, and clearly the Welsh Government needs to work very closely with the UK Government in relation to many of the issues you raise. You'll appreciate that the new Government coming in hasn't been a usual—. They certainly haven't had a honeymoon period, have they? It's been a difficult time to engage with the new Ministers, so I'm not aware of any specific conversations that have taken place.

I referred before to the homelessness prevention fund, and that £6 million that the Welsh Government brought forward was to plug a gap that the UK Government left with the budget reductions that were brought forward by the Department for Work and Pensions. And whilst the Welsh Government will continue to do all it can to help people with the unprecedented cost-of-living crisis, we have to recognise that we can't plug every gap. But I'm sure that the Minister will be having discussions with her new counterpart when she returns to work.