Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:54 pm on 10 October 2017.
First Minister, last week when I asked you, you revealed that your plan to address the homelessness crisis that we face in Wales was to wait for a Labour Government to come to power in Westminster. Now, I’m sure that will be of great comfort to the many rough sleepers in Wales ahead of the fast-approaching winter. If we had powers over Jobcentre Plus and administrative control over payments, something that Plaid Cymru has called for for many years, you would have the power to prevent sanctions and to prevent the administrative fiascos that leave people destitute. Now, preventing homelessness, as you know, saves money in other public services. It also saves lives, because the increase in recent drug-related deaths is linked to homelessness. It’s for those reasons that we prioritised the Supporting People budget as part of our recent budget negotiations. Now, given all of this, aside from the Supporting People budget that I’ve just mentioned, are you seriously saying that there is nothing else that you can do to stop this growing crisis in homelessness until there is another Labour Government elected in Westminster some time in the distant future? Is that the best that you can come up with for rough sleepers in this country?