First Minister Mark Drakeford has explained why he will not be considering rent-freeze in Wales. The mortgage crisis has led to many landlords putting up the rent on their properties to keep up with their own mortgage payments.
Mark Drakeford was answering questions from Member of Senned from South Wales East, Peredur Owen Griffiths about if his government would consider a rent freeze in the private housing market like the recently introduced legislation passed by the Scottish National Party in Scotland, saying “Tenants in Wales deserve the same security.”
To which Mr Drakeford said that rent freeze is a ‘blunt instrument’ and has ‘many unintended consequences’.
Read more: The eight new laws the Welsh Government wants to make this year
“We know in Scotland that it has led to a reduction in properties available for rent because people who have bought properties on a buy-to-let basis themselves face mortgages, that have now gone up significantly,” said Mr Drakeford. “The Bank of England estimates, that it will take a 20% rise in private sector rents simply to cover the additional costs that by-to-let landlords now, incur.”
He added: “Even the Scottish scheme is not a rent freeze for everybody. It is a rent freeze for some people in some circumstances. In Wales, we believe there are other measures and less blunt instruments that allow us to respond to the people who are in exactly the difficulties that the member described.”
Speaking on his government’s measures to tackle the issue, he said, “The schemes that the Welsh government is devising, with that 40 million pounds, will travel under the broad banner of ‘help to stay’. So they are aimed at early-stage mortgage difficulties where it's possible to take action that will allow people to remain in their own homes.”
The questions came on the same day that the First Minister announced the Welsh Government's plan for eight new laws over the next 12 months. You can view them here.
