5. 4. Statement: Resilient Communities — Next Steps

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:30 pm on 14 February 2017.

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Photo of Carl Sargeant Carl Sargeant Labour 3:30, 14 February 2017

I thank the Member for her contribution. Clearly, she wrote the contribution prior to my making this statement, because all of the things I listed in the statement were what the Member didn’t mention. Purely politicising poverty is not the way to go forward, and the Member should know better about that. The Member started off by making reference to when I made statements back in 2011. That’s six years ago, and I accept I made those statements—you’re absolutely right I did—but just before then, her Cabinet colleagues were around the table when Communities First was being discussed and didn’t raise that issue, when that Member was also on the benches in this Chamber, so don’t start to lay blame about responsibility and what poverty is and what poverty isn’t. The Member is running into an election and hoping that an attack on us regarding this Communities First programme is something that she will gain benefit from. But let me tell the Member what she didn’t raise: the issue of Flying Start, the issue of Families First, the issue of adverse childhood experience hubs, employability pathways, childcare, the pupil deprivation grant, community assets. These are all programmes—[Interruption.]