What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the UK Government's increase in local housing allowance and its impact on Welsh households?
I am pleased that the UK Government has finally listened to our calls, and those of the wider housing sector, to uprate the Local Housing Allowance rates. The current rates have been frozen since April 2020, and are based on data collected in the year ending September 2019. For the last four years, tenants have been struggling with the growing gap between benefits and market rents. The new rates will not be applied until April 2024, which will not help families who are already struggling to pay their rent this winter. Although the rates will increase to reflect rents collected in the year to September 2023, there are many tenants in the Private Rented Sector who will still have to top up their rents. We therefore continue to call for LHA rates to be set at the 50th percentile rather than the 30th percentile, as they were when LHAs were first introduced.