Landlords to receive anti-racism and hate crime training

The training will be free of charge to landlords and agents

Anti-racism and hate crime training will be offered to private residential landlords and agents in Wales.

The Welsh government says landlords would then be able to "offer appropriate support where tenants have experienced racism and/or hate crime".

The Welsh Conservatives said the Labour government should concentrate on building new homes rather than "virtue signalling".

Rent Smart Wales will start this non-mandatory training later this month.

A Welsh government spokesperson said: "We are providing Rent Smart Wales with £25,000 to deliver anti-racism training to landlords so they are able to respond quickly and offer appropriate support where tenants have experienced racism and/or hate crime."

The training will be free of charge to landlords and agents.

The spokesperson said it would "count as evidence of continuous professional development in relation to training requirements to become licensed/re-licensed to let and manage rentals in Wales".

'Distraction'

Welsh Conservative housing spokeswoman Janet Finch-Saunders said: "We know that Labour are letting down the people of Wales by only building half of the homes we need.

"With 90,000 households on social housing waiting lists, this policy represents another distraction.

"Yet again, the Labour government are focusing on costly virtue signalling vanity projects as opposed to delivering the housing Wales desperately needs."

The private rented sector accounts for 14% of the Welsh housing stock.

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Data from the Annual Population Survey for the year ending June 2021 shows that 4.9% of people in Wales are Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic and the largest ethnic minority communities are living in Swansea, Cardiff and Newport.

Hate crimes

The 2020-21 National Hate Crime statistics, published by the Home Office in October 2021, show an overall increase in the number of hate crimes reported in Wales by 15.7% since 2019-20.

Over the same period, the number of hate crimes with race as a motivating factor reported in Wales rose from 2,634 cases to 3,052, an increase of 15.9%.

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The Welsh government spokesperson explained that landlords and agents "will be able to show prospective and existing tenants that they have completed this training to provide assurance to their tenants that they can turn to them if they are experiencing any form of racism or hate crime.

"An added benefit of this training would be that landlords and agents who are the victims of racism or hate crime themselves would know where to seek help and support."

'Good quality'

A spokesperson from the National Residential Landlords Association said "we support, and indeed encourage, any landlords who want to broaden their knowledge and professional skills through accredited training".

"Most importantly, having better-trained, more aware landlords can go a long way towards helping landlords to deliver the good quality, private rented accommodation that the country so desperately needs.

"Where rogue and criminal landlords are not meeting standards, we urge local authorities to use the enforcement powers at their disposal to deal with those individuals robustly."

The Welsh government has published an Anti-racist Wales Action Plan "towards creating an anti-racist Wales by 2030", and an LGBTQ+ Action Plan, which aims "to make Wales the most LGBTQ+ friendly nation in Europe".