Carl Sargeant: I thank John Griffiths for his contribution and, again, I have had a full report back from my team in regard to the meeting that he mentioned on Friday. I’m grateful for his feedback and that it was of use to him and his colleagues. I think the Member’s right to raise the issue around empowerment and resilience. I use those terms a lot because I think that’s what communities are about....
Carl Sargeant: Being in employment provides the most effective route out of poverty. Investment in the early years is also critical. In Neath Port Talbot, Communities for Work and PaCE support parents to enter sustainable employment, while programmes such as Flying Start are supporting children to have the best start in life.
Carl Sargeant: Initiatives within my portfolio that contribute to tackling poverty include childcare, affordable housing, financial and digital inclusion, and employability programmes such as Lift and Communities for Work. To further support our most disadvantaged communities in Wales, I am consulting on a new approach to building resilient communities.
Carl Sargeant: Our refreshed package of support, which includes initiatives such as Veterans’ NHS Wales and the housing referral pathway, set out Welsh Government’s policies and actions to support former members of the armed forces community in Wales.
Carl Sargeant: This financial year, we are providing £4,200,000 to third sector organisations, which include voluntary organisations, through our homelessness prevention programme. It supports a wider range of work, including advice, outreach and family mediation. Support is also provided through our Supporting People programme via local authorities.
Carl Sargeant: The alternative projection of future housing need made by the late Professor Alan Holmans in 2015 does not take into account changes in household size and type as recorded by the 2011 census. These changes do inform the principal projection made in the report. It is important to note the assumptions on which all such projections are based.
Carl Sargeant: I thank the Member for his question. The study is the most comprehensive ever carried out on the sector in Wales. It covers almost 74 per cent of all park home sites, as well as stakeholders. It contains four key recommendations, which I’m currently considering in terms of the implementation.
Carl Sargeant: I think many Members have made representations to me and previous Ministers on this issue. Indeed, Kirsty Williams last week had a conversation with me about a group in her constituency. I am aware of the issue around the 10 per cent levy, commission rate, on this, and I am giving this further consideration in the round of the whole report, based on the outcomes of my discussions with my...
Carl Sargeant: I thank the Member for her question. We are supporting parents into employment through Communities for Work, investing in the early years and building resilient communities that can offer children the best start in life.
Carl Sargeant: The Member is right to raise the issue of Communities First, as many others do in this Chamber. I have said often that there are many good programmes within the Communities First clusters, but the reality is, as we discussed yesterday in the debate around child poverty, the very stubborn effects of poverty are very hard to move into a different space. We have to take a very new approach to...
Carl Sargeant: I thank the Member for his comments at the start of his question; we’re very grateful for them. It’s not for me to give the Member a history lesson, but I will remind him that poverty just doesn’t happen by chance—there are often causes to this. Back in the 1980s, when his party was in power in the UK, they destroyed our communities in Wales with the coal mines and the steelworkers,...
Carl Sargeant: Look, I won’t knock Communities First’s workforce—they are doing a fantastic job across communities—but this is an extremely difficult nut to crack. Poverty is not moving in the right direction. That’s why we have to have an overarching rethink here. Huw Lewis and Dawn Boden, now, are doing a fantastic job in their communities, representing their communities with Communities First...
Carl Sargeant: We have pathways through local authorities where there are opportunities to speak with anti-homelessness officers in authorities across Wales. We have a very good recognition in a 63 per cent reduction in homelessness figures in Wales.
Carl Sargeant: I agree with the Member in that nobody should be homeless at any point, particularly at Christmas. It’s a terrible place to be considering. But we are investing in homelessness provision through organisations like Llamau. We invest in our communities—in local authorities—but there are still people who present as homeless and we are doing our damnedest to make provision to support these...
Carl Sargeant: We introduced last week a new housing pathway for veterans, which was created and designed with veterans in that process. I launched that in Lesley Griffiths’s constituency in Wrexham, and it’s a very popular one. I was with armed forces personnel only last week, with the general in Wales, and he was very complimentary about the efforts we’re making here to support the armed forces,...
Carl Sargeant: I’m supportive of the Member’s question. I think the Member should write to me in detail on that. I think she’s right to raise that, while this is a non-devolved function, we do pick up the consequences of vulnerability. I think that’s something I’m very interested in trying to resolve with the Member.
Carl Sargeant: Certainly, if I am able to meet with them, I will do. If not, I will certainly provide a member of staff to support your support in meeting them.
Carl Sargeant: I will look at that in more detail—I’ll speak to my Cabinet colleagues as well. I think this is a moral issue—the politics aside of any local authority, actually we’re talking about human beings here. Anybody who finds themselves in a homeless position—it would be terrifying, and there for the grace of God go I, sometimes. The fact is we should make sure we look after people...
Carl Sargeant: That’s why we’re introducing 100,000 apprenticeships for all ages. That’s why we’re continuing with Communities for Work. That’s why we’re continuing with the Lift programme. That’s why we want to engage with our communities to build better, stronger communities. I was very clear about my sense of direction yesterday. I would welcome the Member’s comments in terms of embracing...
Carl Sargeant: Two points. First of all, I’m very grateful to the Member for suggesting a response to my question earlier on. But may I remind him that it was his Government that was in power in the eighties that absolutely devastated Wales, with the highest rate of unemployment ever in the UK? And his mate on the front bench there, in UKIP, was part of the Government at the time as well, so he can’t...
