On 6 December, the Welsh assembly passed a bill designed to try to halt the death of social housing in the region by banning right to buy. The bill is due to come into force by May 2021 and is crucial at a time when the number of social homes in Wales has fallen by 45% due to housing being sold off under the right-to-buy scheme.

Wales is leading the way on working to combat the housing crisis, using what tools it can. The Welsh assembly has more limited legislative powers than Holyrood or Stormont, but the devolved region has managed to implement a different homelessness strategy to England, and gives everyone the right to housing, wherever they come forward for help.

So, if a homeless person approaches Cardiff council, the council is duty bound to help. There is no talk of local connection, which has become a crucial barrier to many people accessing homelessness services in other parts of the UK, or points-based needs assessments that have seen young single men pushed back onto the street.

The Conservatives in Wales attempted to delay the bill, arguing for tenants to have two years to purchase their homes before the new rule comes in. That move was rejected, and many areas of Wales have implemented the ban. Under existing powers, Anglesey, Cardiff, Carmarthenshire, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Swansea councils have banned right to buy.

The blight of holiday homes lying empty and pushing up local prices has also been tackled by the Welsh government. In many regions, holiday homes and second homes left empty are now charged double the standard rate of council tax. This potentially puts off people whose finances might just stretch to another property, but also increases revenues for councils.

And there’s more to be learned from Wales; housing associations there enshrine domestic violence policy in their working practices and, after an intervention in 2014 by the late Welsh housing minister Carl Sargeant, housing associations that don’t have a domestic violence policy will be denied crucial funding.

Alison Inman: ‘Some who experience domestic abuse will live in social housing’ | Jane Dudman Read more

In practice, this means housing professionals have a duty to ask, sensitively and following agreed guidelines, if they believe there is a possibility of domestic abuse. That duty falls to all frontline staff, including a repairs team member who might notice a pattern of damage in a property, an antisocial behaviour officer or a finance team member for whom a pattern of arrears might raise alarm bells.

That Wales has soldiered on with legislation and policies that could genuinely improve the rights of Welsh tenants and protect the limited social housing stock in the region is commendable, given the pressures on its finances thanks to Westminster, and the lack of political leadership from London. Scotland, too, has taken action to halt its housing crisis.

In his budget, Philip Hammond made the right noises about the plight of young people stuck with high renting costs, but offered nothing radical or helpful to address their problems.

And what about those in need of social housing, or homeless and in need of any form of housing?

England appears too scared to act on housing for fear voters will bolt like terrified horses at the first sign of sinking profits and assets if house prices decline. If the political situation continues in this manner, the housing crisis will be an exclusively English problem, and the blame will lie squarely at the Conservatives’ door.

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