MIKE HEDGES WELCOMES GOVERNMENT STATEMENT ON 2ND HOMES
Speaking from the Senedd, Local Swansea East MS Mike Hedges said… ‘ I welcome the position of the Welsh Government on 2nd homes. I find it morally wrong that some people can have large 2nd homes which are used for holidays and weekends when there are a lot of people living in poor quality and over crowded houses. I have long called for the large scale building of council houses and for the removal of housing from small business rate relief. I am pleased that the Minister supports the building of council houses and is supportive of the removal of rate relief. Everyone deserves a good home – a good home is key to good health and a good start in life for our young children. I am pleased to support a government committed to those principles’
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I very much welcome the statement by the Minister. If we had a surfeit of housing, then second home ownership would not be a problem, but unfortunately, we have a shortage of accommodation across Wales and in certain parts of Wales, a massive shortage. I find it morally wrong that some people have two or more houses and others are either homeless, living in very poor quality housing or living in accommodation that is totally inadequate for the numbers living in it.256
Does the Minister agree that the large-scale building of council housing has to be part of any housing solution? We know that the only time we had house building and demand in equilibrium was during the time that large-scale council housing was built in the 1950s and 1960s.257
Short-term holiday lets is a growing problem, even in Swansea East. I will again ask that properties for short-term rent are controlled via the planning system; it just happens and it causes huge problems to the neighbours. I agree that the testing of something in one area is a brilliant idea, and I hope that other Ministers will learn from that so that we can test things before we implement them across the whole of Wales.258
Finally, can I again ask that housing is excluded from small business rate relief? That is one of the things that distorts the market, and allows people to make lots of money by not paying any council tax and not paying any small business rates. I think we need to make sure that housing is for people, not for profit.259
16:25
Thank you, Mike. I completely agree with you about the large-scale social house building. That's why we've got the 20,000 social homes for rent in this Senedd term. Councils have only recently, of course, been removed from the Conservative cap on the housing revenue accounts, and they've done remarkable things since then in stepping up their house building, having to reconstitute much of their skills and talent base that they'd lost in the 40 years since Thatcher took the right away from them. I'm really pleased with the success that they've had in doing that, and we are certainly working with the 11 stock-holding councils to ramp that up right across Wales in conjunction with registered social landlord partners as well.260
In terms of the short-term rents, one of the things that we are very determined to do is implement the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016. The renting homes Act changes the relationship between landlords and tenants and will really help in the short-term rental section. It will give landlords certainty of income and better tools to make sure that their good tenants stay in place. And it will give tenants better tools to use against the rogue landlords that we have very few of in Wales, but where we do encounter them, we do need to deal with it. I'm very pleased that we will be able to do that, and we're on course to implement that as we go.261
Of course, the business rate exemption point is part of the consultation that is now complete. We are just analysing the 1,000-odd responses that we got from that, and we'll be able to come back to the Senedd with the outcome of that as soon as we've been able to analyse those responses.
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