We move on to the next item on our agenda, which is a statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children on the child-poverty strategy for Wales and the progress report for 2016. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children, Carl Sargeant.

Thank you, Deputy Llywydd. This morning, I laid before the Assembly a copy of the Welsh Government’s progress report on tackling child poverty. This is a statutory requirement under the Children and Families (Wales) Measure 2010. I’m pleased to report that we have made significant progress towards achieving our child poverty objectives in a number of areas. Employment in Wales is close to a record high and the number of children living in workless households is at an all-time low. We have reduced the gap in educational attainment between pupils eligible for free school meals and those who are not, exceeding our target for pupils achieving the expected level at foundation phase.

Our 2015 child-poverty strategy identified five areas where we can do more to tackle child poverty. Progress has been made in these areas through collaborative working and some innovative thinking, resulting in important partnerships such as the food poverty alliance and the National Advice Network. However, we know we need to do more. Economic inactivity remains high in Wales and in 2015 there were still nearly 72,000 children living in workless households. These are children who are particularly at risk of living in persistent poverty and who are more likely to experience adverse childhood experiences.

In-work poverty is a growing issue and we are now in a position in Wales where we have more households in poverty where someone is working than not. Our commitment to tackling child poverty is not in doubt. Delivering on our ambition to eradicate child poverty, as defined by the relative income measure, by 2020, depends very heavily on the decisions and actions of the UK Government. UK Government decisions on welfare reform play a major part in the forecasted rise in poverty and this, alongside labour market changes, means that we are not able to achieve this target.

The Llywydd took the Chair.

Welsh Government does not hold the primary policy and fiscal levers, especially in terms of the welfare reform we talk of, needed to enable us to deliver the significant changes in relative income that would be required ahead of 2020. We cannot wait until then to have this discussion. Projections by the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that relative child poverty in the UK will rise significantly as 2020 approaches, partly as a result of the UK Government’s tax and benefit reforms. Living standards over the next few years will also be hit by a combination of higher prices and lower earnings. Real average earnings are forecast to still be below their 2008 levels in 2021. This means more than a decade without real earnings growth. A period like this has not been observed in the last 70 years.

Llywydd, the issues we face can only be tackled through new ways of working. Within a context of stretched resources and reducing budgets, we need to focus our efforts where we can have most impact with the levers we do have available. ‘Taking Wales Forward’ sets out how we will deliver change and make a difference to people’s lives in Wales; how we will create more jobs and better jobs through a stronger, fairer economy; how we will improve and reform our public services; and how we will build a united, connected and sustainable Wales.

Increasing well-being and economic prosperity are fundamental to improving outcomes for vulnerable children, including those living in poverty. The key commitments outlined in our programme for government will help drive the tackling poverty agenda over this term of Government, providing direction for our work, which will support disadvantaged children to get the best possible start in life.

Our 2010 Children and Families (Wales) Measure will continue to provide the legislative framework for tackling child poverty here in Wales. As you’re aware, this places a duty on Welsh Ministers and named public bodies to set objectives for tackling child poverty. We also have the opportunity to use the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 to support a nation, all-Wales approach to tackling poverty and reducing inequalities, maximising our collective impact in uncertain times with the levers we do have at our disposal. Under the 2015 Act, a set of 46 national indicators for Wales will measure national progress towards achieving the seven well-being goals. A number of these are the same as the population indicators being used to assess progress in achieving the objectives of the 2015 child poverty strategy, including educational attainment, the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training, employment, health outcomes and skills.

Progress in tackling child poverty at a Wales level will be assessed using the national indicators underpinning the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act on which the Welsh Government can have most effect. Llywydd, we will report on the national indicators through the annual well-being report for Wales. In 2019, we will also publish our next strategy report on the extent to which the objectives in our child poverty strategy have been achieved, as required under the Children and Families (Wales) Measure.

We have said before: we cannot tackle poverty alone. Only by working in partnership can we hope to achieve the level and pace of change that are needed to reduce child poverty in Wales. In November, we set out the well-being objectives that will demonstrate our commitment to supporting families and have a clear focus on tackling poverty. In particular, objective 1 aims to create conditions to give every child the best start in life.

I firmly believe that this is the time for a new, whole-Government approach to building resilient communities to help us deliver on this agenda. This will focus on three key themes: early years, employment and empowerment—delivering communities that can offer children the best start in life; communities that are ready and able to work; and communities that are empowered and engaged, as well as being safe and strong.

I’ve also invited organisations to join with us to develop children’s zones to help improve the life chances of children and young people who are living in Wales. Llywydd, we need to support families when they most need it and equip services to respond to the challenges of our modern times. Our ambition is to make a difference for everyone, at every stage in their lives, now and for the longer term. Thank you.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I appreciate that you have to make this statement, because it’s a statutory requirement, but there isn’t much in what you’ve said today that we haven’t already heard in other statements. While I appreciate that you’re putting those measures in place, I think, sometimes, we need to, perhaps, think about, if you’re bringing statements to the National Assembly, how we can add value to the discussions that we have, here today as an Assembly, because we want to be as effective as we possibly can.

The figures out this morning in relation to child poverty show a welcome drop in child poverty from 31 per cent to 29 per cent, but this is still higher than Scotland and Northern Ireland put together. Given your statement also mentions that wages are stagnating, which, by itself, could bring more families above the 60 per cent of median income, should we be regarding this 2 per cent drop as evidence of significant progress or simply a combination of statistical quirks?

What we all really mean by child poverty, of course, is children living in households where the parents, or parent, or guardian are poor. Given the figures also show that rates of poverty overall have remained the same, and many childless households may wish to be households with children in the future, would you accept that without a wider effort to tackle poverty per se, the eradication of child poverty will never be met?

These figures, of course, today don’t measure expenditure and in particular what happens when inflation puts the price of essentials up. This is likely to happen in future years and, once again, emphasises the need for more financial inclusion and education in our schools. I can’t overestimate the emphasis that we need to put on this so that people have those life skills when they are leaving school. So, how are you now working with the Secretary for Education to strengthen financial education so families can become more resilient? We’ve seen from schemes like recycling and so forth, where children are bringing those learning skills back to their parents, that if we increase financial education at a younger age, those skills could be utilised at a younger age.

Last year, the former communities committee of the last Assembly published an extremely critical report on your strategy. One issue raised was that a lot of the advice services were, in fact, very generic—there was no investment in services for people with specific needs, such as disability. What changes have you made since the report to take account of these particular findings?

I’d also like to know what other changes you’ll be making in relation to that report, because I know that the new equalities committee, under the leadership of John Griffiths, plans to do some more work on poverty in Wales, notwithstanding looking at how you will be changing, potentially, if you are minded to, Communities First. So, I would urge you to look back at the legacy report to see how you can make changes before we provide you with even more recommendations for you to try to implement.

My other question is in relation to children’s zones. You put quite a lot of emphasis on these in your statement, but when you’ve come to us, as a committee, you’ve said that they are just a concept. I want to try and understand, if it is a concept, how that concept will actually change how things are going to work, because if no money is going to follow it, it’s going to take quite a lot of work for some of those organisations, potentially, then, to change how they are doing things.

I would also like to ask if we could have an update on the consultation in relation to Communities First. I’ve had quite a lot of people contact me in relation to trying to understand how they can actually input. I think what we need to do better generally as politicians is try and get people involved in what we are doing. How are you going to reach out to communities to ask them, if you are minded to change it, what that change will look like and how they can become part of the solution for change, as opposed to feeling that it’s always top-down and they’re told how those changes should happen?

We know from Brexit and from other discussions we’ve had in the last year that we have to make sure that people want to come alongside these changes, otherwise nothing ultimately will change. We’ve talked since I was elected in 2007 about child poverty and about the fact—. We hear time and time again that we don’t have all of the levers, but we have to utilise the levers that we do have much, much better, because do we not want our legacy to be that we’re coming up with solutions and not time and again struggling behind other nations in relation to child poverty?

I thank the Member for her contribution. I hope she got a flavour from the contribution I made in the statement that it is time for change—it’s about standing up and saying that what we’re currently doing isn’t working as well as it could. We need to change programmes that we’re moving to deliver.

I think the Member did raise the issue around the percentage drop of 2 per cent over the last three years. I do believe that that is probably a statistical quirk—I don’t believe it’s a true reflection of what’s happening. We’ve seen over a 15-year period that the poverty stats for children have bounced along the bottom. It’s a very stubborn indicator to move, and that’s why I think we have to have a whole-Government rethink about what our interventions are. The WFG Act lends itself very well to that, because now this isn’t just about the Government having responsibility for poverty, this is about the 44 public bodies out there as well having an involvement and thinking about what we do for our young people and our communities, and the resilience out there.

The Member raised the issue particularly around Communities First. She is right to say that I haven’t made a decision yet, but the involvement that is part of the principle of the WFG Act—we’ve had over 1,500 responses in already with regard to that, and I think that’s a very effective way of ensuring that my team is both digitally enabling access to communities and individuals but also having conversations with clusters. We’ve been out and about talking—indeed, I think John Griffiths held an event that my officials attended last Friday, and they very positively had a discussion about what the future may or may not look like.

With regard to other areas the Member covered, I agree with the Member—she talks about financial inclusion, and we’ll be launching the draft financial inclusion strategy this week, which I’m sure that the Member will be very keen to have a further discussion on. But the broader principle of what we’re trying to do here is to enable young people and families—it’s about giving families resilience in order for them to be able to help themselves as well.

On the issue around child zones in the Member’s question—and, again, one of her colleagues always asks me a very similar question around child zones—I’ve already started work with several organisations. We’ve asked for expressions of interest about what this may look like in their communities, but it’s about building on what is already there—so, Families First, Flying Start, social workers, local authorities, Government intervention bodies—and wrapping those services around a family unit. And it’s not new; the concept has been trialled in other countries, and we think that we can do this. What I can’t promise, and the Member is a realist—the fact is, this doesn’t mean additional cash, but what we’ve got to do with what we do have, we have to have better services, and the concept of the children’s zone is one of those. And I had a meeting with Cymru Well Wales last week, which is one of many organisations, including Public Health Wales, local authorities and housing associations, that are coming together to look at the introduction of ACE zones and children’s zones, and how they combine and how they operate. So, I’ve got external partners looking at how they deliver these policies.

As the End Child Poverty Network Cymru states, official Government figures published in June 2016 show that 29 per cent of all children in Wales are in relative income poverty, equating to 200,000, which they said remains higher than the UK average and greater than that of the other devolved nations. How, therefore, do you respond to their calls to the Welsh Government, firstly to provide clear and strong leadership on tackling child poverty to ensure that all children in Wales are able to reach their full potential, to include engaging with the UK Government, public bodies in Wales and all sectors, including employers; their call to put in place a monitor, a specific child poverty delivery plan with, quote,

‘ambitious milestones and targets…which promotes evidenced programmes and services’; and their third call, to ensure that tackling child poverty remains a priority within new arrangements under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015? They say Welsh Government should also ensure that clear accountability measures are in place.

Your statement does refer to progress in tackling child poverty being assessed under the national indicators underpinning the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act, and you refer to having published in November a set of well-being objectives, demonstrating the Welsh Government’s commitment to supporting families and having a clear focus on tackling poverty. How, therefore, will you ensure that the purpose of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act to make public bodies work better with people, with communities and each other, taking, quote, ‘a joined-up approach’, which the future generations commissioner described in her first report as ‘co-production’, actually goes forward on the ground? I don’t want to get into quibbling about terms; it is an international term supported by hundreds of organisations now across Wales, but it’s more about how that joined-up approach at street level actually happens, turning the power thing upside down, designing the system backwards, ensuring that things are done with people, not to or for them.

You state it is time for a new whole-Government approach to building resilient communities, and I think that obviously until today and previously in the context of your thoughts around the future around Communities First. At that time, I asked you if you could respond to the call by Oxfam Cymru for the Welsh Government to embed its sustainable livelihoods approach in all policy and service delivery, as that is aimed at helping people break out of poverty. That was based on their three-year Building Livelihoods and Strengthening Communities in Wales programme, which helped over 1,100 people and had very commendable and measurable outcomes. I hope, by now, you’ve had an opportunity to look at that and you could respond with your views on their call and that model as something that could be taken forward.

You’ve obviously, and rightly, referred to the need to mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences, and of course you’ve appointed my colleague David Melding to chair a working group looking at this area. But, what are your expectations as to how what you actually do in this area will change things? And, in particular, regarding one demographic, how will this recast the narrative of children in care and foster care?

As I mentioned last week, charities Carers Wales, Contact a Family Cymru and Learning Disability Wales are calling on the Welsh Government to rethink its proposal to make £5.5 million funding cuts that provide vital grants to low-income families with severely ill or disabled children in Wales. They say the Welsh Government seems to have made the decision without considering the impact it would have on the most vulnerable families with disabled children or, I might add, the much greater additional costs this would impose on statutory sectors, particularly health, education and social or children’s services.

You refer to nearly 72,000 children living in workless households. That is close to the Office for National Statistics figures published in July, which said that one in eight children in Wales are living in a long-term workless household—higher than the UK average. That’s defined as households where all adults have been out of work for more than a year or never been in paid employment. Given the research showing that children living with long-term unemployed parents do less well at school and are at a higher risk of being unemployed later in life, what work are you doing with your Cabinet colleagues, particularly your Lib Dem colleague in this respect, acknowledging that and the interconnectedness and interrelationship with your agenda?

The final set of questions I have relate to the commission on social mobility and child poverty and its state of the nation report 2015 applying to Wales. They said that while trends in employment are moving in the same direction as the UK as a whole,

‘Wales has higher rates of low pay than other UK countries, keeping many children in poor working families.’

They said that educational attainment in Wales at all levels remained unacceptably low and significantly below other parts of the UK. I’m not going to re-rehearse recent figures, but they simply reinforce those concerns. The commission said

‘the Welsh Government needs to ensure that services and support will be available to all families, including those not located in the most deprived areas.’

How do you, therefore, respond in your wider consideration about the future, about building resilient communities, to their findings that more than 65,000 children whose families receive out-of-work benefits or child tax credits in Wales were not living in Communities First programme areas and, in fact, more than 25,000 children in families receiving out-of-work benefits or child tax credits were living in the top 40 per cent most deprived areas in Wales, but still not in areas benefiting from Communities First; and to their recommendations that the Welsh Government should take a more rigorous evidence-based approach to poverty reduction with a review in order to ensure that there is a clarity about what problem the policies are trying to address, what they’ve achieved and how they will achieve it; and to their call to the Welsh Government to improve the quality of the workforce in schools, recommending making teaching more attractive to good-quality teachers and encouraging students to become teachers in Wales; and their call to the Welsh Government, finally, to improve business in its drive to reduce child poverty and increase social mobility, working with companies and developing a business compact to promote fairer access to high-quality employment? I’m talking about education and employment, but this is in the context of child poverty and how we tackle, not only the root causes in their young lives, but also the wider socioeconomic contributory factors. Thank you.

I thank the Member for his many questions. I’ll do my best to respond to them. There isn’t much that the Member contributed that I don’t agree with him on. There are many things there that we align our thoughts around, apart from the term ‘co-production’, but we’ll probably always have that discussion in terms of how that’s worked. But the principle of what the Member says is absolutely right: this is about doing things with people as opposed to doing things to them. I said to Bethan Jenkins earlier that, as a Government, we can’t fix poverty; it’s got to be a collective response to work with communities and other public bodies to make sure we build the whole resilience around that.

There are many things that have an effect on poverty and the Member raised those issues around jobs, skills and growth. I work with my Cabinet colleagues, particularly Ken Skates, who is the lead member on poverty, but we all have a duty and a responsibility to deal with these issues. The two themes that I mentioned earlier on were about economic regeneration, giving people jobs, skills and confidence to be able to get into the workplace or volunteering market, and the other one is around well-being and following the principles of the WFG Act, and concentrating very specifically on tackling the issue of ACEs. I’m very grateful that David Melding does chair the looked-after children advisory group for me. It is a matter of fact that I would expect that most people who are fostered or living in a care environment, you would be able to stack the ACEs that those young people have developed. We know that if you experience four or more ACEs, it has a massive impact on your lifetime in the long term. It’s not a one-off issue. You can be repaired and you can be supported to move into a different space. I’m very keen to make sure that all of our programmes look at people and their need base, and that’s why, partly, I’ve started the review around Communities First.

It was a very localised area-based programme. I don’t accept the issue that we got this wrong, because Communities First have done some fantastic work across many constituencies across the length and breadth of Wales, following the principles of the Welsh index of multiple deprivation in terms of how that was assessed. But what I do recognise also is that there are areas of deprivation outside those areas, and we have to make sure we can flex programmes like Families First, like Flying Start, like Communities First—whatever that may look like in the new year—to make sure that we can have that full engagement with people who are in need so that we can support them.

In terms of the point around engagement and accountability, I expect public service boards and well-being plans to have a stake in this to understand their communities better, to understand where there are levels of deprivation and what we do about it collectively. It’s not about blame; it’s about responsibility and making sure that we all have a stake in managing the well-being of our communities. The well-being of future generations Act—I know that our views may differ here. The Member uses it an awful lot, and there are Members on the Plaid benches who use it, the well-being of future generations Act, as a stick to try and beat Government with. Actually, if we use the principles embedded in the Act properly, we can have a major shift in social demographics here in Wales, and actually it’s something that the UK could follow too. I think we’ve got a huge opportunity that would be wasted if we don’t get this right. I’m sure the commissioner and the auditor general will have something to say as we take this process through, but I welcome the Member’s contribution.

The sustainable livelihoods programme is one that I have noted. I’m not saying that I’ve dismissed the programme; what I’m saying is that we’ve got many programmes that have great effect, and I’ve got to look at maximum impact. It will be something that I will give further consideration to as I move forward with understanding what we take forward in terms of the space of Communities First, and what that looks like in the future.

Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. It is pleasing to note that progress has been made in reducing child poverty. However, we still have an awful long way to go if we are to meet the goal we all share of eradicating child poverty once and for all. I note from your statement today that you will be unable to meet your target to eradicate child poverty by 2020, and to a degree you have blamed the UK Government’s welfare reform. Does this mean that you have abandoned the target altogether? The UK Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s annual state of the nation report was critical of the Welsh Government’s policies, stating that they were not having the right level of impact. Therefore, do you take any of the blame here for not perhaps acknowledging this sooner rather than later, and maybe changing something to eradicate the poverty sooner in Wales than we are doing at present?

We also note that people in less affluent areas have a lower life expectancy. Therefore, this brings inequality all round. My region, in particular, has some of the highest levels of child poverty in the UK—between 26 and 28 per cent; it fluctuates across the region—and while the levels are reducing, we are not making progress fast enough. Obviously, with child poverty comes inequality in so many ways—in education, less pursuit of recreational activities due to lower finances, stunting, therefore, the emotional growth and well-being of the child. A poor diet also doesn’t enable children’s bones, for example, to develop as effectively as people with a good diet. So, do you think, Cabinet Secretary, do you agree, that it may now be time for a revised child poverty strategy that has a clear road map and a timeline for eradicating, or attempting to eradicate, in regions like mine and throughout Wales altogether? Thank you.

I thank the Member for her contribution. We shouldn’t be shy about thinking about what happened in the past. In the 1980s, Wales was subject to very high levels of unemployment, from miners to steelworkers, where communities were absolutely devastated and wiped out in terms of employment. That has had a massive effect on the well-being of communities for the future. With poverty, you can’t just turn the light switch on and off; this is a long-term trajectory, and that’s why I’m saying, over the last 15 years, we’ve bumped along the bottom here, and, where we’ve tried to make interventions, I think we’ve stopped communities getting poorer. What I think we have to do now is build those communities to get stronger.

I’m not shy of saying I think what we’re doing today is very brave. We’re moving into a new space of opportunity. There’s some risk there, but I think your colleagues said on the benches earlier on that it’s measured risk and about how we have to think about what we need to do for the future. That’s why some of our programme interventions have to be thought through collectively, because we’ll never change these communities. We can paint communities—paint them a nice colour and make buildings look fantastic—but the fabric is in the people and we’ve got to help the people within those communities. That’s why tackling adverse childhood experiences has to be fundamental in the way that we deal with supporting individuals.

The 2020 figure was an ambition and it was ambitious, but we shouldn’t lack ambition in Government. I think we’re not ditching that now; we will still chase as hard as we can to get there, but there is a reality check here, and that’s why the WFG Act lends itself very well to measuring the success of a long-term approach to changes in the way Wales operates and the people in Wales respond to that change. So, we have a measuring process to look at. I think today is a red letter day for tackling the issues of poverty as a Government, as a collective nation, with our public partners. It’s something that I think, collectively—. I don’t think there’s anybody in this Chamber who doesn’t want to see the eradication of child poverty. We must work together to ensure that we can do that.

The majority of children in poverty live in households where one or both parents are working. The cause is not just low pay, but also working practices that some of us thought had disappeared with the ending of the second world war. We’ve seen the growth not only of zero-hours contracts and low guaranteed hours contracts, but also a huge growth of agency workers and self-employed contractors. Whilst there are areas of the economy where each of those suits both employers and employees—zero-hours contracts for things such as irregular sports events, agency workers to fill a skills gap, self-employed sub-contractors for short-term need, and low guaranteed hours to fit in with caring responsibilities—unfortunately, those are not the only reasons the above contract types are used.

Zero-hours contracts offer no guaranteed minimum hours of work; they can require a worker to be available to work at all times and give the employer total control over the amount of work each worker gets each week. Low guaranteed hours, such as one hour a day over a five or six-day week, are similar to zero-hours contracts, but they ensure that everyone clocks in daily, so that the employer can then decide how long they will be needed to work. Agency workers and self-employed sub-contractors have the equivalent of zero-hours contracts without even the minimum employment protection. All the above explains why the majority of people in poverty in Wales are also in work.

Children aren’t the major breadwinners in any household. Children are in poverty because their parents are in poverty. The only way to deal with it is to get their parents out of poverty. What I’m asking the Minister is: what is being done to ensure—and you talked earlier in answer to Bethan Jenkins about 44 public bodies in Wales—what’s to ensure that they all pay the proper living wage? And what’s in there to make sure they all employ people under decent contracts, not one of the four I talked about earlier? And what is being done to ensure that the sub-contractors that come in also work to those decent terms and conditions? The sort of terms and conditions when I joined the workforce in the late 1970s were the norm, which now seem to be abnormal. So, what is the Welsh Government doing to ensure that the Welsh pound is being used to employ people under decent contracts, with decent terms and conditions and a decent wage?

I thank the Member again for his very good contribution in terms of an understanding about his community and communities’ work across Wales. The Member is right that we have to enable the family unit—parents—to be able to secure quality, decent jobs. I think, as the Member will be aware, we made sure that that was part of the WFG Act, and that’s why the 44 public bodies have to consider this. It isn’t optional anymore. They have to consider this in a measured way alongside the public services boards. I would like all of our partners to be paying the living wage, and I’m sure that the finance Minister is listening very carefully. I’ll have that further discussion with him to see what we need to do to pursue that with some vigour.

One of the family units most vulnerable to poverty is that headed by a woman, and women are more likely to live in poverty for a longer period of time and to have more recurrent spells of poverty, which obviously affects children in families where the mother is a single parent. So, I think you do have particular patterns of families where some additional help or support is needed. I commend the Welsh Government on its bold childcare offer, because I do think that this is one of the ways that we are going to actually tackle poverty, by providing the opportunity for women in particular, because they do suffer disproportionately, to have the opportunity of getting into the workforce. Obviously, when they get into the workforce, we then have to tackle all the issues that Mike Hedges has raised in his contribution about living wage and zero-hours contracts. But I think the fact that we are actually taking this step forward is a real commitment to eradicate child poverty, and one of the most crucial things that we can do. So, does he expect that, when we’ve done the pilot schemes and we’re actually implementing that policy, that this will directly help deal with poverty?

I just wanted to reiterate again the huge geographical inequalities there are about levels of poverty. I think you’ve only to look in Cardiff, our capital city. We’ve got the lowest levels of child poverty, and we’ve got the highest level of child poverty. It’s very difficult to think in a homogeneous whole about how you tackle these issues. My own constituency of Cardiff North has got one of the lowest levels of child poverty, yet there are areas where I know that there are individual families and individual children who are not fulfilling their potential as we would all want them to do. How we actually get to the nitty-gritty of how we deal with those issues on the ground I think is one of the huge challenges, but I think there is no doubt that there is the commitment here to end child poverty. But I think we’ve just got to—. We do have to remember and repeat that we don’t have all the levers. We probably don’t have the most important levers in order to end child poverty, but we must do what we can with what we’ve got. As I say, I commend the childcare offer as a major way of doing that.

I thank Julie Morgan for her contribution. I think the childcare pledge that she raises is, as I said earlier, the most ambitious and generous childcare pledge anywhere in the UK, which we aim to start delivering in the autumn of next year. I see the childcare pledge as a bit of a childcare plus agenda, really, because not only will we have an economic driver giving the opportunity for parents to go out to work and earn more good-quality jobs, I hope, but it will also give an opportunity for good-quality childcare. So, we get a double hit for the one policy that we have delivered. But the Member is right that whilst there are, in some places, some large areas of deprivation, which we know are on the Wales index of multiple deprivation, we do have families or streets that are outside of the postcode areas that we have our programmes sorted for, which we don’t reach out to. Sometimes they are equally as in need, and that’s why I’m hoping, with the programmes for the future, that we can look at specific needs of individuals as opposed to a postcode event in terms of some of the areas. Indeed, some of the areas that we do know have issues with deprivation, not all of those people who live in those areas need the additional support either. So, there's no easy fix to this, but I've asked my team to look very carefully at individuals, wherever they live. If a person is in need, if a family is in need, then we should look at a way of integrating an approach in which we can get underneath that family and wrap around them to make sure that we give them support for the future.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your statement and particularly for your emphasis on partnership, which I hope, of course, includes partnership with citizens themselves. Just a couple of questions—the first is: I wondered if there'd been any movement on an issue that I've raised before, which is about public services taking on a due regard for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. I think, myself, that should be a duty rather than an option, and I think it will actually help you in what you're hoping to do, as articulated in the statement that you've given today. Certainly, one of the strongest weapons in anyone's armoury against poverty is advocacy, particularly self-advocacy, wherever that’s possible. And I think that, with article 12 in mind, it would be a good idea to raise our young people with the ability to make their case where it matters, rather than just confining themselves to social media in so many cases.

You did mention the future generations Act in your statement, but you didn't make any specific reference to the Welsh language, and bearing in mind that this is now mainstreamed, or supposed to be mainstreamed, throughout Government policy, I think it would have been a good opportunity to reinforce that, because, realistically, there are still certain sections of our society who look at the Welsh language as a bit of an add-on, a bit of a nuisance, particularly when they have major social considerations to take into account. But I think, if we're looking at raising everyone’s or anyone's economic prospects by improving their skills, then we're doing our poorer children a disservice if we allow them to continue to accept that old-fashioned message, rather than looking at Welsh language as a way of improving their own economic prospects, with Welsh language skills just being part of what may help them, along with other skills—obviously, I'm not saying this is the answer to everything. Thank you very much.

I thank the Member for her contribution, and, yes, she has raised the issue of the rights of the child and public bodies, particularly local authorities. I'll give that some further thought again, actually. I have had a conversation with the children's commissioner in the past around this, and I will give that some further exploration about what that may or may not mean.

I think the issue of advocacy is a really important one about people engaging and the ability to be able to listen to people's real experiences. Part of my policy agenda now is making sure that we have real-life experiences coming back, feeding back, into the system. So, we've got people that are sitting on the domestic violence advisory group—I've got survivors within there. I'm looking at the looked-after children element of this and making sure that we've got looked-after children actually on the advisory board as well. I think I’ve said to Members in the past that we wouldn't think twice about financing a commission of £20,000, £30,000, for an external body to do a review for us on a particular issue, but we never seem to think about actually getting some real-life experience in there and paying them about their experiences and bringing them to the forefront. So, I’m giving that serious consideration.

Can I say the Welsh language issue the Member raises is an important one? And Alun Davies is the lead Minister on this, and he doesn't let me forget that, or any other Ministers. Because of its absence, it doesn't mean that we don't consider this, but I'd also say that some of our poorer communities, people living in poverty, have many challenges in their lives. The Welsh language may be one of them, but, actually, when we look at the ones that have a long-term massive effect around the ACE profile of an individual, Welsh language may be supportive in that process, but we've got to fix all of these pieces as well. I think the Member is right to raise this issue, but, please, my apologies that it doesn't sit in the statement, but it's not one that's been forgotten either.

May I join other Members in welcoming this statement today and the focus that it brings to child poverty and reducing child poverty? Could I begin, Cabinet Secretary, by thanking you for the attendance of your staff at a recent meeting in a community centre in Newport East to discuss the future of Communities First and tackling poverty programmes, which was very useful? Two matters that came out of that event, I think, were the importance of that particular centre to empowerment of the local community, and also to the resilience of the local community, and I know these are matters that you are considering very carefully in terms of tackling child poverty and the general way forward. I know that those community centres are delivering on tackling child poverty by working with parents and children in that local area, and I know that’s the case elsewhere. So I’m sure you would want to assure myself and others that you’ll be carefully considering those advantages of community centres in deciding on the way forward with Communities First.

Also, Cabinet Secretary, I wonder if you could say a little bit about community-focused schools, because I also believe they’re very important in terms of working with parents and local communities around child poverty issues and general quality of life for children. I believe that our school buildings are not always utilised as well as they should be. Many of them are still locked away at weekends, during the school holidays and during the evenings. Given that resource is scarce, it doesn’t seem to be a very good use of those existing buildings.

On the early years, I wonder if you might say a little bit about Flying Start, which I think is working well, but perhaps could be widened in terms of those accessing it to work better still. It’s obviously very important to tackling child poverty. I believe it’s very important to early language acquisition, which is crucial for life chances. And obviously, I know you want to drive up the quality of the early years workforce, and perhaps have more university graduate involvement in Flying Start settings would assist with that, and also, perhaps, co-location, which I believe is useful in widening the access to Flying Start—co-location with midwifery services, for example.

Finally, Cabinet Secretary, I wonder if you could say a little bit about ending the defence of reasonable chastisement. There was a very interesting event that Julie Morgan hosted in the Assembly today where we heard very positively of the experience elsewhere, including Ireland, and how positive that is in terms of empowering parents with positive parenting techniques, understanding the children’s rights agenda and bringing those to the fore in terms of tackling children’s issues. If you could say a little bit about the timescale for ending that defence of reasonable chastisement, I think that would be very useful.

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. How we get there is another interesting one, because financially challenged organisations—ourselves as Government and local authorities—we have to forge a new way of doing business and taking some responsibility. Whereas Communities First, I understand, in your particular area was a funder of community centres, in other areas that wasn’t the case. So, there probably are ways of getting through this, but we need to have a longer-term discussion about what that may or may not mean. I haven’t made the decision, as the Member is aware, on Communities First, but I don’t think it’s unhealthy to have those discussions about making sure that long-term sustainability of organisations is at the forefront of all our discussions as we move forward.

Community-focused schools—I’m really encouraged by the Member’s enthusiasm about this. I agree with him. I think there’s a great opportunity there for a community focus for building beyond what education is, with a much more holistic look to what we can deliver in our communities. I did a visit in Ely about two weeks ago, and it was a fantastic opportunity—there was a great school there, doing so much more than just education. This was doing a great piece of work with families and children beyond what their normal remit would do. I’d say to all of my partners that you have to look beyond that now—beyond what is our normal day job—to look at what extra we can do. There are so many organisations already doing this. What we have to do is join them up, and make sure that all of these bodies come together. That’s why the principle of children’s zones is something that I’m excited about, about bringing these experts in around an individual to know what they may or may not need for the future.

I made a commitment last week—indeed, it was in Newport, actually—in the Flying Start and Families First joint conference, where I committed to taking both those programmes forward with finance, because I think they are critical to shaping the way our environment works. How we integrate them with the early years is going to be an interesting discussion, but I think it’s a must.

The final point—I’m very conscious of the time—is the issue of ending the defence of reasonable chastisement. There’s a suite of tools around that too. Positive parenting is something that we’re starting to push out very hard and, by the way, we’ll be legislating too. I cannot give the Member the date of when we’re going to introduce that, but I will write to him when I’ve got the detail.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.