Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:51 pm on 19 October 2022.
Absolutely, Mabon, we have some practices growing up in the rental sector that are clearly putting barriers in place for people who want to get there. Obviously, what we'd really like to do is build social homes at pace and scale. I've just had a conversation with the benches opposite about the macroeconomic factors that are preventing us going as fast as we'd like, but I would like to just say that we have put absolutely record levels of investment into that, both through the social housing grant and with our councils. So, we are still building them, but the intervention rate that we are now having to put in is significantly increased for each individual house. The money that we've put aside, despite being at record levels, is, of course, eroded by inflation, which has gone into double figures, I understand, today. It's quite clear, isn't it, that that macroeconomic picture erodes the buying power that we have here in Wales with a fixed income, effectively.
But we are working with the local councils to make sure that they can put up guarantees and bonds for tenants who find themselves in that position in the private rented sector. We are working with our private sector landlords, who we can contact through Rent Smart Wales, to make sure that they know about that and they are willing and able to accept guarantees and bonds from the local authority. That's not open to absolutely everybody, but it sounds as if your constituent would be on the social housing list anyway and would be eligible.
Obviously, I'm constantly saying to the benches opposite that increasing the local housing allowance in line with inflation, as they ought to have done, would significantly help in the situation you find yourself in. We are working with private sector landlords as well to make sure that we get as many of them across into Leasing Scheme Wales as possible, and that's growing apace.
I know that we're having a conversation about rent levels and rent capping, and so on, but, genuinely, we are watching what's happening in Scotland and Ireland with great interest. You'll know that both Governments are currently threatened with legal action over what's happened. I would be really interested to have a conversation with private sector landlords in various areas of Wales to understand what their appetite for staying in the market is, especially if the rent was capped. So, if that landlord can't get that level of rent, what will they do with the house? The difficulty is that, in a volatile housing market and with this kind of interest rate, the likelihood is that that landlord may well sell that house, because they can get similar levels of income from investing the money in the markets, because high inflation obviously helps savers, it only disenfranchises borrowers.
So, genuinely, we are trying to hit again the sweet spot between helping people get into these houses so that they can have a roof over their head, with all the factors that we have about growing social homes as fast as we can, but I also want to incentivise the private sector to stay in the market, so working with them to know what would help. For example, Members very shortly will be hearing from us about things like how we can incentivise the PRS to bring their homes up to the Welsh housing quality standard so that tenants are paying much lower bills when they get into their homes. It's not only the high rent, it's the level of energy expenditure and so on that's really important.
My heart goes out to people all over Wales who find themselves in that situation. We really must go at scale and pace in building those new homes, but we really do need to work with our private rented sector as well to get stability into the market and a decent level of return, whilst providing those homes for people. I'm very happy to look at the specific example, though, if you want to write to me.