Julie James MS, Minister for Climate Change
The Welsh Government recognises the pressure the rising cost-of-living is placing on already struggling household budgets. This includes rental costs for tenants. We are committed to helping tenants; committed to ensuring that we strive to deliver adequate housing and that access to private renting is fair: one main aspect of this is affordability.
I have today launched a Green Paper Consultation A Call for Evidence on securing a path towards Adequate Housing – including Fair Rents and Affordability.
This Green Paper consultation is to support and develop our Programme for Government’s commitment, and the commitment in the Co-operation Agreement with Plaid Cymru,to “publish a White Paper to include proposals for a right to adequate housing with a view to establishing (a) system of fair rents (rent control) in the private rental market so that they are affordable for local people on local incomes and (b) new approaches to making homes affordable for those on local incomes.”
Whilst there are international examples and academic work on the concept of housing adequacy and fair rent measures, these are not directly transferable to Wales and the Welsh housing sector.
The Green Paper is a call for evidence so that we can better understand the rental market in Wales, in particular what factors influence landlord behaviour in setting rents and taking on tenants and what do tenants consider is an affordable and adequate property.
The consultation will run over the Summer until 15th September, and a number of workshops will also be held around Wales with stakeholders, to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to give their views.
Increasing housing availability is critical to addressing rising rent increases, which is why we have committed to delivering 20,000 low carbon social homes for rent over the next five years. However, I am keen that all tenures work more cohesively together in the future, and therefore we are keen to look at how the supply of new build affordable private rental properties could be delivered.
I would like to thank the external stakeholder panel members who have been involved in the development of this Green paper, and I look forward to their continued involvement in the Autumn once the consultation closes.