Local Government and Housing Committee

Bore da, Cadeirydd; good morning, everyone. I apologise to start off with, John, I seem to be full of cold, so I'm coughing rather a lot. So, apologies in advance for that.

It's that time of year, I'm afraid, isn't it?

It is indeed, yes, and it's not COVID—I'm very negative—but other viruses are available, it transpires. But, anyway.

So, yes, we have a very significant homelessness pressure across Wales. New presentations are really continuing at a very worryingly high rate, and they are definitely driven, in addition to everything else, by the cost-of-living crisis. As of May this year, we had 8,134 people in temporary accommodation in Wales, and we have got around 1,000 people a month approaching homelessness services across Wales because they are experiencing homelessness or are in imminent danger of homelessness. So, we've listened and responded to pressures in the system across the piece. We have a close working relationship with our local authority colleagues to make sure that we're on board with where they are.

Earlier this year, I provided an extra £6 million to local authorities for the discretionary homelessness prevention fund, which gives them maximum flexibility to use the fund to prevent homelessness, because, obviously, it's a lot better if we can prevent homelessness in the first place than it is to deal with people who have become homeless. We have put a lot of effort into trying to get upstream to make sure that people can, where at all possible, stay in their own homes. It can be used for both social and private tenants, and it includes, for example, providing bonds or rents in advance or clearing rent arrears, and it provides items of furniture and other things that make it possible to stay in your home.

There are a number of other funding arrangements that we have in place as well. We've provided an additional £65 million for a transitional capital accommodation programme to rapidly increase the supply of more permanent homes across Wales, and to accelerate, where possible, our social home building programme. We've invested considerably in that area already; our budget for 2022-23 has over £197 million of investment in homeless prevention and housing support, and a record £310 million in the social housing budget. That includes all the social support grants, which are the main homelessness prevention grants provided to local authorities. We increased that funding last year, 2021-22, by £40 million, which is a 30 per cent increase, and we've maintained that increase this year. It also includes an additional £10 million to local authorities for temporary accommodation costs, as we move towards our rapid rehousing approach.

And then, lastly, just to mention, John—I'm sure you'll have other questions on this—you'll have noticed that the First Minister's statement last week on the cost of living and the actions that we're taking as a Government included a further £15 million for the discretionary assistance fund, which ensured that flexibility was introduced during the pandemic, which enabled more people experiencing severe financial difficulties to access that help; it will continue until March next year. That's in addition to the fund budget uplift of £7 million over the next three years that we'd already announced. Then, there's the £90 million in the Welsh Government fuel support scheme, which supports people on low incomes with non-repayable £200 payments for energy, and a £150 cost-of-living payment is available for all houses in properties in council tax bands A to D, or anyone who receives the council tax reduction scheme support.

And then, we're running a big campaign, myself and Jane Hutt, in conjunction with our officials for a 'Claim what's yours' campaign, which highlights making sure that people who are entitled to these additional supports know about them, and can claim them. We've provided £300,000 to Citizens Advice Cymru. And then, I'm sure, John, you'll come on to it separately, but, of course, we're introducing the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, which will provide additional security of tenure to people in the private rented sector as well. The whole aim of this is to keep people in their homes where at all possible.

Thanks for that, Minister. Clearly, there's a substantial Welsh Government effort taking place with programmes and funding that go beyond your ministerial responsibilities, and it's all highly relevant. We will come on to renting homes later. Minister, you mentioned that it's around 1,000 people a month who are presenting with homelessness issues at the moment. How does that compare with numbers historically over recent years? Is that a very marked increase?

Yes, it's higher than it was before the pandemic. It's about the same as it was during the pandemic, and it hasn't—. Actually, I'm just being told by one of my officials that it's up to 1,300 a month at the moment—

Thirteen hundred.

—so even worse than it was earlier this year. Those figures were commonplace in the pandemic, but they're quite a lot higher than they were before.

Yes, I see. So, in the light of that, Minister, despite all that you've said in terms of Government funding and programmes, it's obviously going to be a very difficult time over the winter and beyond in terms of homelessness. You mentioned temporary accommodation and some of the help that's being given from Welsh Government with regard to that. That additional funding for transitional accommodation, announced over the summer, Minister, could you expand a little bit on what impact you think that's likely to have? We know that there are so many people in temporary accommodation now, and it includes the necessary support for refugees as well. What would you expect to result from that additional funding?

The very short answer to that is that we anticipate up to around 650 additional properties in this financial year as a result of the additional funding, on top of the build we were expecting. What we're basically trying to do is significantly increase the medium and long-term accommodation offer that we have across Wales, in response to this and in response to the refugee crisis, which of course is on top of the homelessness problem we already had. We're also trying to build capacity for the longer term, by providing specific funding to local authorities to fund strategic co-ordination roles on the transformation agenda—so, shifting our whole system towards a rapid rehousing approach, away from priority need, and to ensure strategic join-up across the various parts of the authority. So, it's to make sure that the homelessness or housing options services are not somehow separated off from the rest of the authority, and we've had some success in doing that.

Obviously, we've upped the budgets considerably. Our final budget for 2022-23 was over £197 million of investment in homelessness prevention and housing support, and this £310 million record investment in social housing. So, obviously, we're trying to attack it from both ends. We're trying to make sure that our preventative services, our housing support services, and our rent support services are in place, that we work with our local authorities to make sure that they have joined-up plans to keep people in their homes, and then, where people do fall into homelessness, that we increase our supply of housing as fast as we can, and we move to this rapid rehousing approach that we've discussed with this committee a number of times.

Okay. Minister, just with regard to your working with local authorities, and indeed all the other agencies that are helping deal with the homelessness challenge, with 1,300 people presenting with potential homelessness, at least, every month, will you be meeting very regularly with local authorities and others to monitor the situation? And is there a further possibility of Welsh Government assistance if matters get to the stage where that's necessary, as a result of the monitoring that takes place?

So, we do meet very regularly with the housing cabinet members from across local government. We also meet regularly with registered social landlord providers and Community Housing Cymru. We also meet very regularly with the leaders of the local authorities. So, my colleague Rebecca Evans, the Minister for local government, has a very regular fortnightly meeting with them, and housing is very frequently on the agenda for that as well, alongside the Ukrainian refugee, and wider refugee, crisis. So, we work very, very closely with our local authorities. We have specific officials working as relationship managers with each local authority. So, they have a very specific named official who works with them to make sure that we're on top of individual specific issues going on in local authorities. And we have a whole culture change system approach going on.

We are incredibly proud of the way that Wales responded during the pandemic. We've still got an everyone-in approach, which is not the case across our border, unfortunately. And so, we're very determined to stay on target for that. I'm sure, Chair, you're going to come on to the way that we're transforming homelessness legislation here in Wales. But we're very, very determined to keep our approach going, despite the fact that we have such pressures in the system. And of course, the pressures are exacerbated very severely by the wider economic shock that the country is currently experiencing. Because we know that families that are under economic pressure experience much more in terms of family breakdown, relationship breakdown, which drives the kinds of homelessness that we see.

Yes, absolutely. In terms of legislation then, Minister, I wonder if you could firstly expand on the proposals for transitional homelessness regulations and the reasons for bringing those regulations forward before the more fundamental change that we're going to see in terms of legislation.

Yes, certainly. So, as the committee will remember very well, I'm sure, our 'no-one left out' approach took place almost overnight when the pandemic hit, as opposed to the years of transition that we had originally thought we would have when our homelessness action plan was presented to us. We were very lucky; the serendipity of having had that plan presented to us just in front of the pandemic meant that we had a plan to respond to. I'm sure the committee will remember that that homelessness team is chaired by Crisis, and the new chief exec of Crisis has continued in that role going forward. And we were able to do that very rapidly using the COVID regulations. But, obviously the pandemic regulation regime has come to an end, and now we have a gap between the end of that and where we need to be to have the fundamental primary legislation reform that we need to do. We have a lot of work to do to get there.24

The radical changes we've seen during the pandemic mean that we want to stay where we are; we don't want to go back to the old regime and take a step back before we take a step forward. I'm sure this isn't how my officials will describe it, but, basically, we're putting a sticking plaster on the system to make sure that the current system allows us to have that approach while we work on completely changing the homelessness legislation. We'll be putting a Green Paper out in 2023 to trail what we're actually going to do in terms of changing the entire system in Wales to a rapid rehousing system properly in the primary legislation.

Thank you for that. What impact would you expect from adding rough sleepers to the categories of priority need, and why is that seen as necessary given the ongoing 'no-one left out' approach?

Because the ongoing 'no-one left out' approach isn't supported by the current legislation regime, and so what we're doing is basically adding everyone to the categories that get support as a temporary stop gap. So, it won't have any effect, John, because it's what we're already doing. We're just making sure that the authorities have the legal backup for that while we work on the fundamental changes to the regulations. I'm sure various officials in the team can take you through the detail of that if the committee would like that.

That's fine, thank you, Minister. Finally from me then on homelessness, you mentioned Crisis and the role that they've played, and the expert panel has obviously been very influential—rightly so, I would say. Could you tell the committee how the homelessness Green Paper, which I think is expected next year, will relate to the expert panel and, indeed, Crisis?

Yes, certainly. We're very fortunate in that Crisis are continuing to support our panel. The expert review panel is chaired by Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick. They're developing the proposals and advice for the Welsh Government, and they're completely in line with our action plan, which they developed in harmony right across our system. We want to ensure that our laws in Wales prevent homelessness and, where homelessness is experienced, provide access to rapid rehousing or help for housing, whichever is needed the most. It will include a consideration of priority need and intentionality as it's called, and it will achieve a transformational shift to rapid rehousing, which provides that long-term solution for everyone in acute housing need. The panel has representatives from all key sectors across Wales, as it always has—partners from local government, housing associations, third sector homelessness and equality organisations, and experts from academic and legal fields. I'm really keen to have lived experience voices on the panel as well. So, we're requiring the panel to ensure that the lived experience of people who have experienced homelessness in Wales is reflected in its work.

We will publish the Green Paper in spring next year. It sets out that longer-term policy and legislative mechanisms needed to support the change ahead of introducing the legislation later in this Senedd term. The paper will reflect the themes set out by the expert panel and provide additional broad context into the proposed reforms for consideration alongside the panel report. I'm really looking forward to receiving their final report. We'll be keeping in close touch with the panel as they do their work. I've had a meeting with the new chief exec of Crisis already; we have a shared ambition to end homelessness in Wales across all sectors, I'm pleased to say. This will be a really substantial and complex Bill, which I'm sure the committee will be keen to help us shape. It will reshape the whole legislative policy framework in Wales to make sure that homelessness is rare, brief and unrepeated.

Thank you very much. We'll move on to Carolyn Thomas.

Good morning. I hope you'll be feeling better soon, Minister. I was wondering if you could tell me about the challenges you're now facing regarding the target of building 20,000 low-carbon homes with the current economic situation at the moment, and perhaps an update on the development of Unnos, the construction company.

Certainly, Carolyn. The fundamental here is that we all agree that a good-quality, secure home is fundamental to social, physical and mental well-being, and the escalating cost of living emphasises that the case for investing in social housing is as strong as it has ever been. There are clearly challenges affecting the whole house building industry, but we remain committed to our really stretching target of 20,000 low-carbon homes for rent, as set out in our programme for government. As I’ve already mentioned, we’ve allocated record levels of funding to the social housing grant. We doubled the budget to £250 million in 2021-22 and we've further increased this to £300 million this year. We've set indicative draft budget allocations of £330 million in 2023-24, and £325 million in 2024-25. The challenges, as I'm sure the committee is well aware, include the increasing cost of building materials, delays in delivery, challenges in relation to phosphates, delays in the sustainable drainage systems approvals and planning approvals processes. We're working really closely with the sector, planning authorities and the housing sector to overcome these challenges, and we continue to do that.

In terms of increases in material costs, we've provided additional capital during 2021-22 to support the delivery of affordable housing schemes, and we continue to review the need for additional funding this year. The phosphorus pollution in Wales, which I'm sure the committee is well aware of, and the problems with our special areas of conservation rivers—SAC rivers as they’re called—is a serious issue that is preventing some affordable housing development, but there aren't any real easy solutions to that. I’m sure that the committee is aware that the First Minister held a river pollution summit at the Royal Welsh Show in July, which was a very positive meeting. All attendees recognised the challenge and committed to work together to explore actions in their own sectors rather than blaming each other for the problem. Those task-and-finish groups are going ahead. We've also established nutrient management boards for each of our SAC rivers, to work very hard on how we can get those rivers back into good conservation status.

We're also working very hard with our planning colleagues to facilitate the delivery of social homes. We want to take action to increase the certainty in the planning system through committing to a plan-led planning system that provides a rational framework for taking those planning decisions. We've amended 'Planning Policy Wales' to include a requirement for all local planning authorities to make provision for affordable housing-led sites containing at least 50 per cent affordable housing. I've instructed a post-implementation review of the SuDS regime—that's the sustainable drainage regime—with the first findings due in November of that. The final report focusing on solutions to all of the issues that have been raised with us by the various small and medium-sized enterprises and the construction industry will be provided to us in March of next year.

It was raised with me by a local authority that it can take eight months for a response from statutory consultees, which can hold up the house building process as well, and I think they're struggling to find match funding. Could you give an update on the development of Unnos, the construction company, which is part of the co-operation agreement? Thank you.

Sure, Carolyn, I certainly can. Just to go back to the delays in the planning system, that's very much what we've been looking to work with, and we've also been working with the water companies, Dŵr Cymru in particular, about slow responses to requests for connection for SuDS and sprinkler systems and so on. So, just to assure you that, as part of the construction forum and as part of the forums that we hold with local authority leaders, housing leads and planning leads, we are working on making sure that we can speed that system up as much as we possibly can.

You'll, I'm sure, be aware that most of the local authorities in Wales are now in the process of reviewing their local development plan. Only a few of them have completed that process. Over the next year they'll all go through that process, and we expect them to address the issue of land supply and priority for social housing as part of that process. So, we do hope that system will speed up as a result of the various interventions.

And then turning to Unnos, the designated Member, who is Siân Gwenllian, and myself only yesterday had another conversation about implementing a progressive solution for Unnos. It will not be competing with any SME building firms to deliver social homes. We're talking about a new company. It will not be in direct competition with the private sector; it will be an enabler and an accelerator. So, its whole role will be to speed up the housing planning and delivery process for housing development, and to work with both the RSLs and the councils, and with our SMEs, to understand what the barriers are and to help us to overcome those barriers, to support new collaborative ways of working right across the housing sector and encourage schemes to be brought forward that promote innovation and partnership.

We're imagining that they will be able to help us with improving supply chains and understanding where the blockages are, advancing our modern methods of construction techniques and our capacity within the housing sector to do that, by looking at both the supply and demand ends of that, and to deliver training and upskilling and address ongoing gaps in capacity and expertise—so, like some of the things we've talked about already: SuDS, compulsory purchase and planning, phosphates, groundwork skills and so on. And then last, but not least, it will help us to bring empty homes back into use as rapidly as possible, and also to look again at the whole issue about decarbonisation and insulation.

We might want to accelerate that last bit. The conversation yesterday was around whether we could accelerate some of the installation issues, given the cost-of-living crisis and the problems in the energy markets, or whether we'll be able to assist people to access improving the insulation on their homes, and in particular, actually, helping the private rented sector to access that, by looking again at some of the categorisation that we have for the Wales leasing scheme. So, that's the scheme, just to remind the committee, where the landlord hands their house over to us in return for guaranteed rent for at least five years—longer than that—where we can persuade the landlord. We're considering whether to include very seriously improving the insulation standards of those homes as part of the deal with the landlord, because we know that that will help the tenants with their energy bills. We're really very concerned that people who won't be able to pay their energy bills will also get into rent arrears over the Christmas period and exacerbate the homelessness problems we were just discussing.

I was going to ask you about your views on access to the private rented sector, its affordability and the potential impact of Leasing Scheme Wales, which you just touched on. We know that the local housing allowance was fixed in 2016, again in 2020, and then we have to have the top-ups with the discretionary housing payments. That funding was cut as well, wasn't it? Was it £1.4 million to £1 million coming across as well? So, is that having an impact on your budget to help with the top-ups? And just the impact, really, on the private rented sector, the increasing costs of rents and availability, really—your views on that.

You're absolutely right, Carolyn. Am I muted? No, I'm all right. Sorry, I had a mute sign come up on my screen, then, for a moment.

We've got a real problem, haven't we, because the local housing allowance was frozen. For the life of me I cannot understand what the UK Government thinks it's doing in doing that, because it's clearly exacerbating enormous amounts of these problems. It's an easy intervention in the marketplace to just put it back up to the level it ought to be at. Nobody can understand why on earth they think that's a good thing to do, so we're baffled by that. But nevertheless, they have done it, so that means that people who are entitled to universal credit who live in private rented are not getting the whole of their rent paid and, in some cases, hardly any of their rent paid by it. I think Amelia will correct me if I'm wrong here, but we've seen some figures that show that the local housing allowance is as little as 3 per cent of the market in places like Cardiff, so we're talking about a very serious erosion of protection that people badly need. So, that makes no sense to us to us at all, and it's clearly causing us real problems, because guaranteeing that level of rent is then not sufficient in some areas of the market for landlords, which is why we want to look at other incentives for that.

There is a contraction in the supply of private rental properties in Wales, as some landlords decide to take advantage of the current house price bubble. We're very concerned that it is a bubble and that it will burst, and then we will have some serious problems with that as well. So, we're trying to gear up to make sure that we have interventions ready to go, if that does happen. I just want to emphasise one more time, though, that most landlords see their tenants as valued and respected customers and they have long-term relationships with them. But we do have some landlords capitalising on the current situation and increasing no-fault eviction notices to relet a property for a higher rent. So, we're obviously very keen to introduce our renting homes Act, and that's coming in in December to provide better protection for tenants in respect of no-fault eviction notices over the winter and beyond. Last week, we launched a consultation on plans to ensure that tenants will benefit from the six months' protection, rather than the two months' protection for existing tenants, as well as tenants going on to the new contracts.45

The rent increases are really worrying for us. We have increased, as I've said already, the various discretionary housing assistance grants, and the homelessness prevention fund is flexible enough to be used by local authorities to help those struggling to meet rental costs. We have reminded local authorities that they're able to assist people with bonds and so on, to get them into the accommodation in the first place.46

We are, of course, aware, Carolyn, of calls to introduce a rent freeze. I'm very interested in the announcement from Scotland. And I'm sure that you've seen that Shelter Cymru are asking for a much more measured approach to rents, because we were already seeing in Scotland as a result of the announcement that the evictions were going up. So, I think whilst that seems like a tempting short-term measure, it has an enormous immediate unintended consequence, with landlords coming out of the markets or immediately acting before they think a freeze will come in. So, we're very interested in looking at a proper system of rent control or rent setting, and we have commissioned some research to look into that, but I don't think a knee-jerk reaction without fully understanding what the unintended consequences in the market might be is the way to go. But we are watching very closely what's happening in Scotland. We've approached the Scottish Government for more information about what they're doing, and I've already spoken to various actors in the housing market here in Wales to see what their view is, including, as I said, the chief executive of Crisis. So, what we want to make sure we do is ensure that the supply of private rented property in Wales stays as stable as we can make it and as accessible as we can make it, because we rely heavily—let's be clear—we rely heavily on the private rented sector to house our people. We have large numbers of people who rely heavily on the private rented sector to do that, so we are committed to making sure that our landlords stay in that market, as well as ensuring that our tenants get a fair deal.47

So, we will be publishing a White Paper on new approaches to affordable rents in due course. It's part of the co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru. We've commissioned that research already. And then, Carolyn, I already mentioned to you that we've committed £30 million to leasing scheme Wales over the next five years to improve access to that longer term affordable housing in the private rented sector, providing security of tenure for tenants and more confidence for landlords. But there is pretty strong demand, and we're very keen to bring empty properties onto the scheme as well, so this is where an empty property comes onto the scheme, is brought up to standard and then we have it over five, 10 or 15 years. So, we're very keen on the scheme and rolling it out right across Wales, and to take this opportunity to try and make sure that it gets as much publicity as possible.

Okay. Thank you for speaking on the rent freezes, because we've been asking about that this week in the Senedd, and no-fault evictions are a concern, and also the no-pet clauses as well. I know that we've asked questions on that. If that could all be looked at together for that White Paper, looking at capping of rents, possibly, which we are expecting to be published in the autumn, that would be good if you could cover all those.

I'm certainly happy to do that, Carolyn. Just on the pets, you can't have a no-pet clause; you have to have a reasonable arrangement. So, if a tenant asks for a pet, to be allowed a pet as part of their rental agreement, the landlord has to treat that reasonably. You can't just autocratically say, 'You can't have a pet.' But there might be circumstances in which the landlord would be right to ask for a higher bond or increased cleaning costs at the end of a contract, for example, but they are under an obligation to reasonably consider that request—just to make that clear. If you do become aware of a blanket no-pet clause, do bring that to my attention.

It does seem to be the default thing at the moment. Finally, could you give me an update on progress implementing the second homes pilot scheme in Dwyfor, please?

Yes, certainly. The pilot is now progressing at pace. We have two dedicated members of staff in place in the pilot area, working with the community and stakeholders. They are currently focused on baselining data and local housing need alongside Gwynedd Council so that we have consistent data and a solid base for evaluation to monitor the effectiveness of the various interventions. We swapped the guidance out on homebuy, launched exclusively for the pilot area and developed with Gwynedd Council and Grŵp Cynefin to take account of local circumstances. We've supported the pilot homebuy scheme with up to £8.5 million-worth of funding over the next three years, and we're already seeing traction, with a recent completion and several others understood to be in the pipeline. So, I'm very pleased with that intervention.

We've also made £1 million of funding available for the pilot area to revitalise empty homes, and we've got positive updates from Gwynedd on buy-backs—so, buying back social homes into the system. We've got an extensive engagement process with Gwynedd Council on the application of changes to the planning process. The regulations have been laid this week, as I'm sure the committee has noticed, and we've established operational and strategic groups of key delivery partners to ensure a shared understanding of and commitment to the pilot, working towards possible options for the local authority mortgage schemes and options for the private rented sector in the intervention area there. And we're working with partners on all possible options and opportunities for land acquisition or land assembly for affordable housing. We'll be delivering a workshop with the Dwyfor area committee on 3 October, and a pilot-specific web page will be launched after that workshop to make sure that everyone in the area can access the information.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Carolyn. We move on, then, to Mabon ap Gwynfor.

Bore da. Diolch yn fawr iawn i'r Gweinidog am fynychu, a'i swyddogion. Mae'n dda iawn eich cael chi'n bresennol oherwydd rydyn ni wedi cael mwy o gig ar yr asgwrn pan fod hi'n dod i rewi rhent y bore yma nag yr ydyn ni wedi ei gael dros yr wythnos diwethaf. Felly rŷn ni'n ddiolchgar am hynny. Ond roeddech chi'n sôn am eich awydd chi i sicrhau bod pobl ddim yn cael eu gwneud yn ddigartref, ac yn y blaen. Felly, ydych chi'n medru ymrwymo i gyflwyno rheol yn atal neu'n rhoi moratoriwm ar droi allan dros gyfnod y gaeaf yma—nid troi allan yn ddi-fai ond moratoriwm ar droi allan er mwyn sicrhau bod pobl, yn ystod y cyfnod andros o anodd yma, yn medru aros yn eu tai? Fel rydych chi'ch hunain yn dweud, eich dymuniad chi ydy cadw pobl yn eu cartrefi pan yn bosib; ydy hwnna'n rhywbeth rydych chi'n edrych arno fe?

So, Mabon, we have an agreement already with our social sector, as I'm sure you know, that we have no eviction into homelessness, and that's been a feature of Welsh housing policy for quite considerable time now.

I was very interested by the announcement in Scotland, which we were a little bit baffled by, because social house rents are set on an annual basis. So, I could tell you that social rents were frozen in Wales to next March because obviously they're just set until next March. I can also tell you that I consider, usually around the Christmas period, what we will do with social rents for the ensuing period. I don't know if you remember last year, but we had a sudden spike in the retail and consumer price indices, which are what are used to baseline social rent, and so we capped them last year at 3 per cent, because it had gone up over that for the first time.

I will be very seriously considering what we do for the next financial year here in Wales. I'm expecting advice from my officials about the various impacts. So, just to be clear, obviously we're very concerned about the effect of rent increases on tenants, but we have to also bear in mind that the rent is what pays for the social house building programme for registered social landlords and councils. So, it's a careful balance, isn't it, between making sure that people can afford it, that the people in social housing who are entitled to benefit of course get their rent paid, but large numbers of people in social rented housing are not on universal credit or don't get the full payment. So, it's about balancing all of that out. So, I'll be looking very carefully at what we want to do with that. But, the rents are frozen, if you want to use that language—they're set, I would use the language of—until March next year. So, there will be no rent increases over the winter for social rented properties.

I've already just discussed our attitude to capping rents in the private rented sector, and it's something that we are talking to the National Residential Landlord Association about and we're already looking at increasing the leasing scheme, as I said, and at two things on mortgage rescue. So, we're expecting that the house bubble will burst over this winter. We've already got indications that house prices are flattening or starting to decline. Unfortunately, I'm old enough to remember the last time this happened, with people in negative equity and all kinds of distressing circumstances. So, we're gearing ourselves up to be able to do mortgage rescue packages and to help people stay in their own homes by converting their mortgages into tenancies and helping the local authorities or registered social landlords to buy out properties that are in that position.

We're also looking to see if we can have a mortgage scheme that allows people who've been renting and have good rent records to be able to access mortgages so that they can start a journey on to shared equity properties, for example, or other accesses to the market. We'll be looking again at our Help to Buy and so on.

And then, in terms of evictions in the private rented sector, I've asked officials to provide me with some advice about that, because although, again, it's a superficially interesting intervention, we know, from what we did in the pandemic, that when that came to an end, we had a tsunami of evictions. So, what I don't want to do is just push it down the line. What we don't want is to have people, who can't be evicted over the winter and can't pay their rent, finding that, in March, they are mandatorily evicted because they're in eight weeks or more rent arrears, because that's a mandatory eviction then. So, we need to be very careful that any intervention that we take doesn't make things worse for people down the line. I'd much rather get them to access help to make their rent affordable than to have people stop paying their rent and then pretty much face an inevitable eviction at the other end of the winter. So, we just want to calibrate it.

So, I'm in exactly the same place as you, Mabon—I want people to be able to stay in their homes; I just want to make sure that we do that in the most measured way possible and without any unintended consequences. So, we're working really hard with our tenants' organisations. I just met with Siarter Cartrefi on Monday morning to discuss a number of interventions, for example, and we'll be looking very carefully at that to make sure that we have all of the right calibrated interventions in the market to make sure that we keep as many people as possible in their homes, including talking to the residential landlords and making sure that we've got all the right interventions in place.

And then the last thing I want to say is that we've enabled RSLs and councils to buy tenanted properties. So, even when they don't come up to their development quality requirements—their standards for social rented homes—we're enabling our social landlords, councils and RSLs to buy tenanted properties that come on the market so that we can keep people in their homes in that way as well. So, I just wanted to put that last intervention on the table.

Diolch i chi, Weinidog, am yr ateb. Yn sydyn iawn, serch hynny, dwi'n gwerthfawrogi'r hyn rydych chi'n ei ddweud a'ch bod chi'n edrych ar y pethau yma, ond byddwch chi hefyd yn gwerthfawrogi bod amser yn brin iawn, iawn. Felly, o ran y gwaith rydych chi'n ei wneud—yn gwneud yr asesiadau yma ac yn edrych ar yr impact—beth ydy'r amserlen cyn ein bod ni'n gweld gweithredu felly?

Well, we'll need to announce what we're going to do very shortly, won't we, Mabon? So, we've already put more money into the system. We're making sure that we get as much information out to our registered landlords as possible, through Rent Smart Wales and so on, to make sure that they and their tenants can access a discretionary housing payment, for example, and make sure that people can stay in their properties.

We've worked very hard with the National Residential Landlords Association to make sure that we myth-bust, because there's been a lot of misinformation around about rented homes in particular. Some of the stuff I've seen about what people think is happening is extraordinary. So, we've done a lot of myth-busting as well to make sure that we don't have landlords who think they want to come out of the market for all the wrong reasons. So, that's been an interesting process as well. And, as I say, I'm more than happy to intervene if we think the intervention will have the effect that we want. But what I don't want to do is intervene in a way that means that all we've done is basically stave it off and make it worse. So, we're very keen to see what analysis Scotland has done and if that analysis holds up, then we will obviously—. I've got no qualms about copying Scotland if what they're doing will work. But I don't know if you've noticed, but in Scotland, they've had a real problem with landlords immediately exiting the market. So, they really have had an immediate reaction to that from their private rented sector. So, we're really watching that carefully to make sure that we get our calibrated interventions correct.

Gaf i ofyn felly, ar ochr arall y glorian, wrth gwrs, ydy cymdeithasau tai a thai cymdeithasol ac maen nhw'n ei chael hi'n anos oherwydd mae disgwyliadau arnyn nhw i gyrraedd y safon tai Cymreig newydd—y Welsh housing quality standard—newydd sydd yn dod i mewn i rym? Mae disgwyl iddyn nhw, wrth gwrs, gyrraedd safonau tai pasif bron o ran bod y tai yn amgylcheddol addas. Ac mae yna gostau mawr iawn i retroffitio ac yn y blaen. Felly, maen nhw'n gorfod neilltuo ychydig o'u pres ar gyfer hynny ond hefyd yn gorfod sicrhau, oherwydd mai rhai o'r pobl fwyaf bregus mewn cymdeithas sy'n byw yn eu tai nhw, nad yw rhent yn cynyddu. Felly, dwi yn ymwybodol bod rhent y sector yna yn cael ei glymu i CPI, a dim mwy na 4 y cant, dwi'n meddwl, ie, o ran cynnydd.

Three per cent.

Tri y cant. Mae'n flin gen i. Diolch. Lle ydych chi ar drafodaethau efo'r sector yna, o ran rhoi cyfyngiad y tu hwnt i fis Mawrth ar lle fydd eu rhenti nhw, fel eu bod nhw'n medru paratoi a chyllido, yn edrych ymlaen i'r dyfodol, achos maen nhw, dwi'n gwybod, yn poeni'n arw eu bod nhw'n methu cyllido ar hyn o bryd?

Absolutely, Mabon. That’s what I was saying about having to have a careful calibration of the decision about rents in the social rented sector. We start to make those decisions around December, so I’m just currently waiting on a set of advice from my officials, which will set out the pros and cons of various forms of action in the social rented sector.

Again, I can’t emphasise enough, many people who live in social housing don’t pay their own rent in the sense that it's covered by their universal credit. But many people do pay their rent, and so we have to make sure that it’s affordable for those people, and they tend to be in the lower pay grades across our public services very often, actually, so we need to make sure that we’re not going to make social rent unaffordable. But, at the same time, that rental income is what funds the new builds and the retrofits for our current social housing. Although, having said that, of course, we do provide registered social landlords and our councils with enormous amounts of money direct from the Government to carry out those programmes as well.

We have a formula that sets the rent in Wales. I’m happy to provide the committee with a paper for how that works. One of the things we always emphasise to our social landlords is that that formula is not a target; it’s a ceiling. Last year, I went through a big exercise with social landlords to make sure that they could justify any rent increase. So, there was a ceiling, but we were very, very hard on any social landlord that looked like they’d just gone to the ceiling in their rents for no reason. So, we expect them to go through a very detailed piece of work on their own particular financial circumstances, and the financial circumstances of their tenants, to set their rents at particular levels inside that ceiling. Now, that’s a decision I’ll have to make this winter in the light of the cost-of-living crisis, but in the light of the climate emergency and our need to build new social housing, and that’s what I meant by it being a very difficult and carefully calibrated decision. So, I have not yet made that decision. I haven't even got the piece of advice yet, Mabon, but when I have it, I’ll be looking at it carefully. But the normal situation is—one of my officials will correct me, because I’ll get this wrong now—it’s 3 per cent plus £2, I think it is; one of the officials will tell me exactly. But I don’t have to do that; I could freeze the rents if I wanted to, or I could put them up above that. Last year, we froze them—we capped them for a single year, because CPI had gone up above the 3 per cent. Of course, it’s way higher than that now, so I’m going to have to look at that very carefully.

Ocê. Buaswn i'n ddiolchgar ar lefel bersonol, a dwi ddim yn siŵr os ydw i'n siarad ar ran y pwyllgor, i dderbyn y papur yna oeddech chi'n sôn yn esbonio ar sut mae hynny'n cael ei osod, er mwyn i ni ddatblygu'n dealltwriaeth ni. Yn olaf, Gadeirydd, os caf i—dwi'n gwybod ein bod ni'n awyddus i—

Shall we just bring Amelia in, just for one moment, to tell us exactly what that formula is, because I'm sure I garbled that?

Emma, if you're happy—?

Shall I jump in, Minister? So, the rent policy for social landlords is normally CPI at the designated point plus 1 per cent, plus or minus £2. But there is that call-in clause within the policy that says that if CPI hits 3 per cent, then the policy doesn’t apply per se and it becomes a matter for your consideration, which is what we’re working through at the moment—various scenarios with social landlords, to be able to advise the Minister on the different various impacts that different approaches would have.

Thank you, Emma. I knew I’d garbled it.

Okay, thank you, both. Mabon.

Diolch. Ac ar y pwynt yna, dyna lle mae'r landlordiaid cymdeithasol yn chwilio am sicrwydd o ran y trafodaethau yna roedd Emma'n sôn amdanyn nhw rŵan. Maen nhw'n chwilio i weld lle ydych chi arni a phryd fyddan nhw'n cael gwybod am beth fydd yn cael ei osod, oherwydd eu bod nhw'n methu paratoi ar gyfer eu cyllideb yn edrych ymlaen i'r dyfodol. Felly, os medrwch chi 'expedite-io' hynny a sicrhau bod y gwaith yna'n cael ei wneud, dwi'n siŵr y buasen nhw'n ddiolchgar.

Yn olaf—a dwi'n parchu bod y Cadeirydd yn rhoi tipyn o raff i mi yn fan yma—rôn i'n gwerthfawrogi eich bod chi'n sôn bod chi wedi cyhoeddi yn yr haf fod yna fwy o bres yn mynd i mewn i ariannu llety dros dro, ond y gwir anffodus ydy dydy hynny ddim yn agos i ddigon i ddigolledu'r costau ychwanegol mae awdurdodau lleol yn eu hwynebu. Mae awdurdodau lleol yn wynebu gwario miliynau yn ychwanegol er mwyn cartrefu pobl sydd mewn llety dros dro, felly mae angen mwy o bres arnyn nhw. Oes yna le, oes yna sgôp o fewn y gyllideb sydd gennych chi i chi ddigolledu'r awdurdodau lleol er mwyn sicrhau eu bod nhw'n medru cartrefu'r bobl yna sydd angen cartref a llety dros dro, oherwydd dydy o ddim yn ddigonol?

So, Mabon, we're already giving local authorities very considerably more than the base budget for housing associations. Again, I'll defer to Emma, but around £1.8 million a month is going into local government on top of the usual budgets because we have this crisis at the moment.

We're working on a number of things with local authorities. The standards are really important to us. So, because we have a crisis, we don't want to just say, 'Oh, look, any house is better than nothing. Just shove people into any old nonsense.' But, we know that the standards we have are very high, so we're looking at lowering the standards slightly so that we can bring existing properties into use, for example, but in the certain knowledge that we will be able to bring these properties up to standard at some point in the future. So, we're working on that at the moment. I can't emphasise enough that it is very temporary and that the lowering of the standard is not huge. For example, we want to allow local authorities and RSLs to buy existing tenanted properties, and often they will not be at the standard of the development quality requirements, but we want them to be able to be brought up to that, nor do we want people to be trapped in what's called 'temporary accommodation', although it's a perfectly ordinary three-bedroomed house, for 10 years. We want them to be stable, don't we? So, we have to calibrate the system in the light of the current crisis to allow commonsense interventions, but without lowering our overarching goal of making sure that people live in easy-to-heat, easy-to-run homes for life. I'm not prepared to compromise on that standard, so we have to find a way through this conundrum of being able to fund both of those ambitions at the same time. I'm not in any way apologising for having that high standard and expecting that people in Wales should have the very best housing, and so we need to get through this crisis without lowering those standards to the point where we can't recover them afterwards. So, that's the game we're in.

And so, you're quite right, it will be a very careful calibration of how we fund it from the various funding streams that we have. But, just to remind you and the committee, obviously, we already give an enormous amounts of money out to the RSLs as well through the dowry payment schemes, for example, for the stock transfer authorities, and we will be looking again at the Welsh housing quality standard as well. As you know, we brought properties up to energy performance certificate D, but we will be looking at the next iteration of that as part of our decarbonisation plans too.

Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Mabon. Diolch yn fawr. Joel James.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Minister, for coming today. I was just wondering if I could talk about building safety, really, which, funnily enough, is something I mentioned this week in First Minister's questions. I know from that discussion it was identified that about 163—I know your submitted report mentions 161—buildings have been identified for intrusive building surveys. I was just wondering what the latest is with that, because, originally it was identified to be completed by the summer. There's talk now it will be done by the autumn. One of the issues I brought up in First Minister's questions was about the impact that that delay is having on people wishing to either mortgage or remortgage or even to sell their properties, really. I was just wondering if I could have an update on what the latest is with those building surveys and whether or not you think that is in itself having an impact on the housing market. Thank you.

Certainly, Joel. So, as of 23 September, we completed the intrusive work on 38 of the 163 buildings, and the remaining 125 buildings that require further intrusive survey work are due to be completed this autumn. We have had some delays on some buildings due to building access, where we've had real problems getting the managing agents to allow access, so we're just looking again at how we can get past some of that. We've got the capacity in place to be able to complete the survey work by the end of September, on the assumption access will have been provided to all buildings by then. It might go over another week, Joel, if we can't get access to that. I've just asked my officials to look again at whether I can intervene personally with some of the responsible owners to make sure that we get that access granted as soon as possible to allow the works to be completed. So, I'm happy that we're going as fast as we can there, and I'm very hopeful that we'll get some of these buildings into the actual remediation phase very soon.

Thank you, Minister, for that response. I was just wondering if anything had been done in terms of looking at the impact that it's having on the housing market. Has anything been done, any assessment there?

As you know, we've got a rescue scheme in place there as well. So, people who are trapped in those buildings and need to move on for various reasons and financial hardship can apply to our scheme. We have a buy-out scheme, effectively. I would encourage anyone who feels that they're in that situation to apply through that scheme. I'm going to review the terms of that scheme. We haven't had that many people go through the scheme, so I'll be reviewing the terms of that scheme to see if we can widen out its scope, given the numbers that we've got. So, yes, we have looked at that, Joel. I will say as well, though, that the rental market inside most of these buildings doesn't seem to be particularly affected. We still have people renting out properties in most of the buildings affected, seemingly without any effect on the price.

Okey-dokey. Thanks for that response. Another question I wanted to ask was: the committee recently met with the Welsh Cladiators—I think it was just before recess—and one of the things that came up in the conversations we had with them was regarding the Building Safety Act 2022 and how, in England, they have remediation contribution orders. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on that and whether or not something similar needs to be done in Wales. Thank you.

We've always taken a slightly different view of this than the English Government, as it is for this purpose. We've always maintained that the people who created this issue should be the people who are responsible for rectifying it. Leaseholders in Wales already have improved routes to redress through the Defective Premises Act 1972, building liability orders and building information orders. We're developing, as the committee is well aware, our own building safety Bill for Wales, and we're looking at all provisions for the occupation phases of a building, including what measures to address remediation should be included in that. In terms of remediation contribution orders, it is one of a number of measures I'm looking at, along with provisions to help identify who is actually responsible for the defect, who is actually responsible for paying for it through mediation, and ensuring that the person responsible does pay and faces consequences if they don't. We'll be looking to include provisions within the building safety Bill, and I've asked officials to explore all avenues to bring the provisions into force in Wales as part of that.

Thank you, Minister, for that response. Just one final question, Chair. You mentioned there the Welsh building safety Bill, and I was just wondering if we can have an update on the progress. What's the latest with it and when do you think it might come to the Chamber for us to discuss it? Thank you.

Certainly. It's very much an important part of the co-operation agreement and part of the programme for government. In January 2021, we consulted on the building safety White Paper, which set out our proposals for comprehensive reform of the legislation that contributes to building safety in Wales. It focused on the three key areas identified as part of the Hackitt review and the ongoing Grenfell Tower public inquiry, which were: establishing clear lines of accountability by creating new roles and responsibilities or duty holders for those who own and manage the buildings; driving up standards by improving industry competence and making sure that safety features are designed into the fabric of the building, that their use is properly understood, and they are installed correctly by people with the right expertise; and establishing a stronger, more coherent regulatory system that would hold those responsible to account, with really serious consequences for attempts to cut costs at the expense of the safety of the building and residents. We're in discussion with legislative colleagues on the timings for the building safety Bill, which will be definitely brought forward in this Senedd term, but I'm afraid I'm going to provide the committee with my usual response on the exact timing, which is that that's a matter for the First Minister and not for me.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much. Sam Rowlands. Sam.

Thank you, Chair. Morning, Minister. I just want to build on the points that Mabon mentioned earlier in relation to the decarbonisation agenda for social landlords. Our committee today is likely to note a letter from Community Housing Cymru, the Chartered Institute of Housing Cymru and Housing Leadership Cymru, which I'm sure you've had sight of as well. And they set out in their letter, as they describe it, their 'grave concerns' about the decarbonisation target, and they say the proposals 'are not deliverable'. They're saying they'll have,

'a significant impact on services and the ability to build new homes',

just to quote from their letter. You mentioned earlier about getting this calibration of all sorts of different factors and proposals right. Do you think that calibration is slightly out of kilter now, considering the comments from those housing representatives?

Thanks, Sam. So, we developed the proposal, as we always do, in collaboration with the sector, and the consultation that you're quoting one of the responses to allows stakeholders the opportunity to give us their views on the current proposals, and obviously we're aware of those views. We've had concerns about the funding required and the time frame during the extensive engagement we've been undertaking during the consultation period. We obviously welcome that feedback, and we'll make sure that all the views are taken into account. We've commissioned an independent analysis of the consultation responses. Once we've had that analysis back, we'll consider it carefully, publish the analysis and our response to it. But it's not finished yet, so I'm not able to give you that right now.

We absolutely accept the targets are challenging and bold. We're bold and ambitious to build a greener, fairer Wales. We want to contribute to tackling the climate emergency and make a real difference to people's quality of life. I just want to remind the committee that we were also told that the original Welsh housing quality standard was impossible to achieve, couldn't be done, completely ridiculous in its ambition, just off-the-wall mad, and we've done it. So, I'm very keen to make sure that the sector's concerns are taken into account, but also that they really put their best foot forward in terms of what we can do here, because energy efficiency of social homes is one of the only ways of getting people out of fuel poverty.

So, I'm really, really keen to make sure that we have tenant-focused excellence here; we need this both for the planet and for individual tenants. But of course we understand the concerns over funding requirements, and we continue to work with the sector to develop the final version and explore all the viable funding solutions. And as I was just saying in answering Mabon, these are finely calibrated decisions all the time about what the funding stream looks like, what the funding from us looks like, how we can use public funding to lever in private sector funding to make sure that we accelerate the work that we learned during the Welsh housing quality standard work out into the private sector and the private rented sector, for example. I assure you that we are absolutely listening to that feedback, and we will be working very closely with the sector, who we absolutely rely on to be able to deliver whatever it is we end up deciding we're going to do, and we do that in collaboration with them, of course we do.

Okay. Thank you, Minister. I'm pleased to hear that you will be listening to their concerns seriously, as I'm sure you always do. Just moving on, you wrote to the committee at the start of this year in relation to the Welsh housing survey—I think it was a response to the National Residential Landlords Association letter to yourselves. And you said in that letter that officials will be considering the business case for a future housing survey during 2022. I'm just wondering how that's progressing.

I'm going to ask Emma to come back to you on that, Sam, if you don't mind, because I'm afraid I can't remember the answer to it, I'll be absolutely honest. So, Emma.

Thanks very much. And I think it's fair to say that that work hasn't progressed as rapidly as we might have hoped. Other matters, including the response to the Ukraine arrivals, has deflected from that work, but it is still our intention to progress and investigate that.

Okay. Thanks. I'm sure that, when that work is progressed, it'll certainly help provide a really helpful baseline for evidence, for, I guess, future decision making as well. And I guess that's their concern. Chair, I appreciate the time is running away, so just a couple of other points, if you don't mind. You mentioned earlier, Minister, about the landlords who are—private landlords—leaving the sector in Wales, and some of that concern, going back to that calibration issue. The fact is that twice as many landlords in Wales are leaving the sector, compared to other areas of the UK. So, going on to the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, do you think that’s having a significant impact on the potential supply, then, of private sector landlords?

I’m not sure where you’re getting that figure from, Sam, because that’s not the figure that we have. I’ve just asked for a review of the figures we’ve got from Rent Smart Wales, but the figures I currently have are, between January and August this year, 3,233 landlords have either deregistered with Rent Smart Wales or have allowed their registration to expire. In the corresponding period, 3,904 landlords have registered with Rent Smart Wales. So, it kind of balances out.

Yes, sorry—it was the Propertymark data from this year.

Okay, so—. Well, it’s interesting to know how the calibration works. So, I’ve asked for Rent Smart Wales’s data to be interrogated a little bit more, Sam, so we can understand rather better what the disparity between the two—. I've met with Propertymark, and I’ve heard that data from them, but that’s not what our data shows us, so I’ll be interested to see that.

Nevertheless, what we want to do is work with our landlords to make sure that they are valued in the sector. We value the private rented sector; as I said in answer to an earlier question, we rely heavily on the PRS to house our people here in Wales. Large numbers of people make their home very permanently and happily in the private rented sector, so we want to make sure that we work very closely with our landlords to make sure that they stay inside the private rented sector. There are a lot of myths around about renting homes—a lot of myths—so we’ve been working hard on some myth-busting work via Rent Smart Wales to get out to our registered landlords, I’ve met with the residential landlords association, and we’ve been doing some work to make sure that people understand what it means for tenants and for landlords.

But it’s a combination of things, I would say; it’s the incredible house price bubble that we’re experiencing right across the UK and here in Wales, though that looks like it’s slowing and even reversing now, so I really do hope we’re not going to get a massive crash, as happened last time we had this kind of bubble. And there’s no doubt at all that there are some landlords who are taking advantage, thinking they’ll get a better price for their house now than they might in the future. And as I say, we’ve enabled RSLs and councils to buy tenanted properties, with a view to trying to keep people in their houses, and getting out to landlords that, if they want to sell, they should approach an RSL or a council to make sure that they can’t just sell it with a tenant in the property, rather than evicting them. And we’ve been working hard with the residential landlords association and Rent Smart Wales to get that information out to people.

Okay, thanks, Minister. And again, I'm pressed for time. You have dealt with some of the renting homes Act points previously, but perhaps, just to wrap up this section, I was wondering what lessons you’ve learned so far as you work towards implementing the renting homes Act.

Well, we will do a proper 'lessons learned' once we’ve actually got it implemented, but I’m tempted to be a bit irreverent here, Sam, and say, ‘Don’t try and do a fundamental rejig of the entire housing market in an Act of the Senedd.' I think if we were doing it again we might do it in tranches, because it’s a seismic revolution, really, in the way that we regulate tenancies in Wales, and it’s turned out to be a lot more complex to actually implement than anyone thought at the time, including those of us who were in the Senedd, who passed the Act in the first place. So, we will do a proper 'lessons learned' from it, but I think the biggest one of all is to make sure that we calibrate it and understand the real scale of the change that we’ve made so that we can work on that implementation. Sorry, my voice is giving out now. Apologies. I’ll just have a drink a minute.

We’ve always promised that we would give our landlords six months’ notice. We’ve managed to do that. We’ve always wanted to work in conjunction with them to make sure that we have the smoothest transition possible, and we’ve got a communications and engagement campaign that started in January. We’ve issued monthly e-shots to PRS landlords, informing them of key aspects of the Act. We’ve written out to them, all landlords who are offline—so, we don’t have an e-mail for them—informing them of key changes, and we’re starting a two-week radio awareness campaign in mid-October to inform tenants and landlords alike about the Act. We’ve got online digital advertising via Google search, Rightmove, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, and there’s going to be a heightened campaign in November on tv to get the information out as well. Sorry, my voice is really giving out.

I’m looking forward to those TikTok dances, Minister. [Laughter.]

Okay, thank you, Sam, thank you, Minister. Jayne Bryant.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Minister, and hopefully your voice will just hold out for the last couple of questions, but really appreciate the evidence that you've given us today. Just finally from me on regulation of housing associations, if you could perhaps expand on the reasons why a new regulatory framework for housing associations has been introduced.

Yes, thanks, Jayne. We're absolutely committed to continually improving the way that regulation operates to achieve the outcomes of protecting tenants and investment in social housing, but, more importantly, really, to achieve an overall better outcome for tenants in social rented housing. The old regulatory framework was introduced in 2017 and it was subject to a light-touch review after the first year, when some minor changes were made. And then, during the pandemic, we had a very light touch to regulatory assessment so that RSLs in particular could focus on providing services during what was obviously a very challenging period for everyone.

But all during that period, we were doing work on developing a new regulatory assessment model to provide increased rigour, consistency and proportionality in reaching our judgment. So, the new framework incorporates a revised regulatory standard, which emerged from the review, alongside a much clearer traffic-light-type judgment format, which was suggested, actually, by one of the tenants at one of the review consultation sessions, and an explanation of the revised assessment model and the expectations of an RSL during the assessment process. So, the revised standards will respond to emerging risks and issues, including a much greater emphasis on tenant engagement and involvement, and responding to some of the issues identified following the Grenfell tragedy—so, centred around listening and responding to tenants' concerns, as well as the important equality, diversity and inclusion agenda.

So, RSLs in Wales must be able to evidence that they're creating a culture that values and promotes tenant involvement in strategic decision making and in the design and delivery of all their services. There is a requirement to keep tenants safe in their homes set out clearly in the standards, and achieving high levels of tenant satisfaction with services, making landlord performance information available to tenants, and demonstrating that landlords learn from complaints that they receive, so they don't just solve that complaint and then don't look to see underlying causes.

The standards all align with our anti-racist Wales action plan, and they've got to understand and reflect the diversity of the communities they work with across all their activities and deliver measurable, evidence-based equality, diversity and inclusion commitments, including the anti-racism and tackling hate crime things. We've had nine judgment reports published to date. One judgment under a review notice has been published, which is a new feature of the revised framework, giving public notice to regulators looking into matters that could affect their judgment in the future. The feedback on the revised framework and new format reports has been positive to date, and the regulation team is working with the sector to capture feedback and learning from the implementation of the new standards.

Thank you, Minister. That's really helpful. I think it was in July that you announced the dissolution of the regulatory board for Wales, and I'm just wondering what you see for that replacement advisory body.

Certainly. So, we commissioned work around improving the board's terms of reference and its governance, responding to the changing operating environment for RSLs since the establishment in 2016. So, again, Jayne, this was a board that was established with the old regime and now trying to adapt to the new regime. That exercise established there was very little agreement on the fundamental questions of core purpose, role and remit. There were significant differences of views about how the board should operate and its parameters, and some of the themes identified also raised concerns as to full compliance with the governance code on public appointments.

So, it was just a much wider range of issues than we had anticipated when we undertook the review, and with the cost-of-living crisis beginning to bite, further pressures on landlords and tenants, I took the view it was just the right time for a fundamental re-evaluation of the way the regulation function is supported, taking into account all of the new external factors, including the impact of the pandemic, the new ministerial and Government priorities for housing, the cost-of-living crisis and the general fiscal context overall.

It was not an easy decision to make. The board members had worked very hard, and it's not a reflection on them in any way. I went out of my way to thank them for their work, but the time is now right to look at how we can get the regulatory function in Wales to be best supported to support the new regime in Wales and to make sure that we have a sector that's fit for purpose and has tenants' satisfaction and tenant sustainability at the absolute front and centre of its work.

So, we will now be continuing to engage with the sector, representatives of the regulatory advisory group, Shelter Cymru, TPAS Cymru, Tŷ Pawb, the Welsh Local Government Association, CHC, UK Finance and CIH, all represented on the group that's working with us to get stakeholder perspectives. And I'll be asking officials to work with sector representatives over the coming months to get a set of options to ensure that we have a really comprehensive support system to provide independent scrutiny and insurance on the new scheme as soon as we can.

Thank you for that answer, Minister, and I hope you feel better soon.

Sorry about the coughing. [Laughter.]

Thanks, Jayne. Minister, just one final question before you go, and perhaps get a nice hot drink or something, on decarbonisation of homes in the private sector. How will Welsh Government be supporting that?

As you know, John, we've been running the optimised retrofit programme for quite a considerable time now. And one of the things that we've always wanted to do is to make sure that the learning coming out of the ORP, as we call it, is picked up when we spread it out into the private rented sector. So, we've started evaluating a variety of options for financing retrofitting in the owner-occupied and private rented sectors, including looking at grant funding, repayable finance and the financial capacity of the end user to help them get the most appropriate financing solution in the medium term. We're going to be looking at models that include things like property-assessed clean energy assessments, in which a loan is linked to the property rather than the individual, low interest loans, equity release loans, and remortgages, and we're also looking at a grant mechanism for lower income households. I've had a really helpful meeting with the Development Bank of Wales, who we're working with hard to ensure that we align the offers of work in the space. We're going to have to have, and we've always known this, innovative funding models to pay for the decarbonisation of homes in all tenures. There's no way the Government can afford the costs of this all by itself. So we're bringing together a panel of experts from across the finance sector to work with us to evaluate options and shape viable funding solutions for that.

We'll also be investing into the new housing net-zero carbon performance hub to provide support and guidance to all those involved in residential decarbonisation, and to bring expert guidance together on all aspects of decarbonising your home on a [Inaudible.] basis. So, we'll provide social landlords with access to expert advice in the first instance, John, and then we'll be able to spread that after the first year, expand to help private landlords and owner-occupiers as well. So, as expected, we'll be taking the learning from ORP, to be able to advise people what would best decarbonise their particular type of house—what the best tech looks like, what the best solution overall is. And obviously, one of the other things we're doing is, we're starting to do this in the social sector, also with a view to increasing the skills base in the private sector, so that people can access builders who know how to do the work as well.

Okay, Minister, thank you very much indeed. And thank you also to all your officials for giving evidence to the committee today. You will, of course, be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy in the usual way. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you very much, and apologies for the coughing.

Not at all. Thank you for being with us, despite your current difficulties with obviously a heavy cold, Minister. Thank you.

Apologies. Thank you, John. Bye.

Bye, then. Okay, committee, we'll break briefly then, until 10:30.