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.