5. How does the Welsh Government intend to tackle poverty in Wales? OAQ(5)0008(CC)

7. Will the Minister outline what strategy the Welsh Government will follow to tackle poverty in the fifth Assembly? OAQ(5)0015(CC)

Thank you. Presiding Officer, I understand you’ve given permission for questions 5 and 7 to be grouped today. Tackling poverty is the responsibility of every Welsh Cabinet Secretary and Minister, enabling a truly cross-governmental approach focused on addressing the root causes of poverty. The priorities in my portfolio will be giving children the best start in life and supporting those furthest from the job market into sustainable employment.

Thank you for that. The ‘Improving Life Chances’ report by the Centre for Social Justice urged the UK Government to take into account the five main pathways to poverty—family breakdown, worklessness, drug and alcohol addiction, serious personal debt and educational failure—subsequent to which the UK Government launched its life chances strategy. This starts with the fundamental belief that people in poverty are not liabilities to be managed, that each person is an asset to be realised and that human potential is to be nurtured. If you agree with that, and I hope you do, will you look at the evidence and seek information on whether and how you might introduce a Welsh-made life chances for Wales strategy?

Working with Public Health Wales, which is in the remit of Rebecca Evans, we may even have a better strategy here, and I invite the Member to have a look at the adverse childhood experiences programme that they are already developing. I mentioned earlier on about my department and how we are setting the narrative for influencing community change and resilience. One of those challenges will be about delivering on the ACE programme and making sure the issues the Member raises around domestic violence, alcohol abuse and drug misuse, parental separation and others—. How can we intervene at that point early on in a lifetime to support families as they grow up? I’m familiar with the life chances programme, but I actually think we’ve got a better product made in Wales.

Cabinet Secretary, the first 1,000 days are vital for language development and so for reading and general education and development, and there are statistics that show that children who live in persistent poverty are twice as likely to score below average for language acquisition at age five than their better off peers. Issues identified in terms of dealing with this include investing in quality in the early years education workforce, supporting parents better and, indeed, in general terms, leadership. What will Welsh Government do in terms of tackling poverty by tackling these issues around early years development and language acquisition particularly?

A very topical question from the Member—I actually met with speech and language therapists yesterday who raised the very same issue with me. The Welsh Government is currently mapping the various policy initiatives across education, health and social services to inform the development of a cohesive approach focused on educational provision of speech, language and communication support. I know that the therapists yesterday were very specific on the life chances of an individual. If they don’t get this early on, it has an impact on their life and opportunities later on. I welcome the question from the Member and I will keep the Member informed.

The history of the Welsh Government’s strategy on tackling poverty appears to me anyway to be one of setting long-term aspirations in order to end poverty but without setting short-term specific targets with the appropriate resources to achieve them. Very often, the aspirations are either postponed or completely dropped once the Government realises that they’re not attainable. Because today’s circumstances are very different to those of a decade ago, isn’t it now high time to rethink and focus on projects and policies that tackle poverty in reality and in a measurable way?

Yes.