Thanks to Jeremy Miles for drawing attention to the Citizens Advice ‘Fairness for all’ report, a very important report that I take very seriously. There are three specific recommendations for Welsh Government, two of which fall into my own area of responsibility. The first was to continue with our council tax reduction scheme. It’s an expensive scheme. It costs £244 million every year, and I am proud of every single one of those pounds because they go to help the very poorest and most vulnerable households in Wales. I am very proud of the decision that this Assembly took to support that scheme, and the sharp, sharp contrast that it draws between the position of families in England, millions of whom have to pay money towards the council tax at a point when their own benefits and their ability to do so has been frozen and further compromised. So, I was very pleased indeed to be able to make the announcement today that that national council tax reduction scheme will continue for a further year, and that I will be discussing its further continuation with local authority colleagues.

However, the report does draw attention, to my mind, to some concerning evidence in relation to the deployment of bailiffs. I want to be clear that the use of bailiffs should never be anything other than a last resort, that other courses of action should always have been exhausted first, and that public authorities that contract with bailiffs need to think very carefully about who they are contracting with. I intend to commission some fresh research into the way that these things happen in Wales in order to work with public authorities to try to make sure that, where people find themselves in this degree of difficulty, we respond to them in the most sensitive way possible.