<p>Poverty</p>

Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:34 pm on 10 October 2017.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 1:34, 10 October 2017

One of the things that’s absolutely designed to undermine the Welsh Government’s efforts to tackle poverty is the introduction of universal credit, rolled out across Wales. We’ve seen in parts where it has been rolled out that it’s led to an increase in rent arrears and numbers of people going to food banks. Now, the Scottish Government has got responsibility for the administration of welfare, which has enabled them to reduce the amount of time that applicants have to wait, to two weeks, which is the same as jobseeker’s allowance, and also, to ensure that landlords can continue to receive the rent payments directly. So, I wondered what conversations you’ve had with the UK Government on enabling us to mitigate the worst effects of this ghastly new proposal.