I welcome the opportunity to bring forward these amending regulations today. The Council Tax Reduction Schemes (Prescribed Requirements and Default Scheme) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 amend the 2013 council tax reduction scheme regulations. The scheme provides direct help to households across Wales by reducing their council tax bills, and these amendments ensure entitlements are maintained.

The UK Government abolished council tax benefit on 31 March 2013 and passed responsibility for developing new arrangements to the Welsh Government. The UK Government's decision was accompanied by a 10 per cent cut to the funding for the scheme. The Welsh Government responded by meeting the funding gap, to maintain entitlements to support to 2013. We have continued to maintain entitlements each year since. The scheme currently supports around 268,000 of the poorest households in Wales. As the cost-of-living crisis continues to place increased pressures and hardships on the people of Wales, it is even more important that we ensure that the systems in place to support them are as fair as they can be and are kept up to date.

Amending legislation is needed each year to ensure the figures used to calculate each household's entitlement to a reduction are increased to take account of rises in the cost of living. The 2023 regulations make up these uprating adjustments and maintain existing entitlements to support. The financial figures for 2023-24 relating to working age people, disabled people and carers are increased in line with the September consumer price index—10.1 per cent. Figures relating to pensioner households continue to be increased in line with the UK Government's standard minimum guarantee and mirror the uprating of housing benefit.

I've also taken the opportunity to include minor technical changes and to make additional amendments to reflect other changes to related benefits. For example, I'm amending the regulations to ensure that people arriving from Ukraine, who are fleeing war and are in need of support, will not be treated as not being habitually resident in the UK. This means that, where eligible, they will be able to access this scheme. A further amendment ensures that the council tax bills of households in Wales that host people under the Homes for Ukraine scheme are not affected by their offer to provide support to people from Ukraine. And finally, we have removed the exception for European economic area citizens, who are now subject to immigration control, to mirror the regulations in England.

These regulations maintain entitlements to reductions in council tax bills for households in Wales. As a result of this scheme, the most hard-pressed households receiving CTRS will continue to pay no council tax in 2023-24. This scheme remains a cornerstone of our targeted support for households, especially those suffering most from the effects of the cost-of-living crisis.

Finally, I'm grateful for the report of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee. As outlined in the Government's response to that report, the two minor technical errors in the regulations will be corrected prior to the regulations being made, and I ask Members to approve these regulations today.