2. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on how various elements of the draft budget help the most vulnerable groups of people in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney? (OAQ51237)

I thank Dawn Bowden for that. Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, full retention of the £244 million council tax reduction scheme, an extra £1 million to uplift the discretionary assistance fund and an additional £20 million for homelessness prevention are amongst the budget elements that assist most vulnerable groups in Merthyr Tydfil, Rhymney and beyond.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that answer, and I’m sure, Cabinet Secretary, you will agree that the support offered to vulnerable people by this draft Welsh budget stands in stark contrast to the grotesque chaos of the Tories’ universal credit scheme. Welfare reforms, Cabinet Secretary, are stripping billions of pounds—yes, billions of pounds—from our Valleys communities, including Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, and this, in turn, is impoverishing the lives of too many people. And I’m sure the Cabinet Secretary will agree that the work of food banks is not uplifting, as leading Tories describe them, but are a sad indictment of twenty-first century Britain. So, in spite of the Tory cuts to our Welsh budget, can I ask the Cabinet Secretary to confirm that the focus of this Welsh Government will be delivering the warm, secure homes that our people need, the financial support and advice they deserve, and the holding out of a helping hand that we may all need in tough times, so that in Wales at least, people know whose side we’re on?

Dirprwy Lywydd, let me begin by agreeing with the point that Dawn Bowden made in opening her supplementary question. I attended a meeting early today involving housing associations, the third sector, credit unions—all of them expressing real concerns about the impact that changes to universal credit are already beginning to have in parts of Wales. Some of us remember the time when we had what was called a social security system, and what we now have is exactly the opposite, a system that breeds insecurity in the lives of those people least able to bear it, and the result is that costs are created and displaced into other parts of the system. The Trussell Trust has reported that food bank usage in areas where there has already been full universal credit roll-out has increased by more than twice the rate in other parts of the UK where roll-out has not happened. But we see it as well in escalating arears, evictions, impact on mental health services, and so on. I know Members here have asked me in the past about the way in which Welsh Government budgets can be used to protect the social fabric of our society at a time when it is under such strain, and where individuals need to rely on it all the more. And the points that Dawn Bowden made about what we are trying to do in housing, in supporting people in greatest need, are part of our ongoing efforts to try to use the budgets we have to make good the social fabric because we know how much it is needed here in Wales.

Thank you, Minister, for replying to Dawn Bowden’s question with so much detail. But I think there is another side of the coin. Vulnerable people on low incomes have been hit hard by the Labour Government’s failure to pass on the funds it has to freeze the council tax in Wales, with the result that council tax debt has been labelled as ‘Wales’s biggest debt problem’ by Citizens Advice. The Welsh Local Government Association has warned that councils will have to raise—

Are we coming to a question, please?

[Continues.]—council tax—

Question, please.

[Continues.]—council tax by 5 per cent due to proposals in the draft budget. What action will the Cabinet Secretary take to alleviate the problem of council tax debt caused by regular above inflation increases and relieve the burden on hard-pressed households in Merthyr Tydfil and elsewhere in Wales?

Dirprwy Lywydd, I entirely reject the underlying proposition in that question, which is that had we frozen the council tax in Wales, that would somehow have left people better off. What we know is is that without the ability to raise the council tax, then the ability of local authorities to go on providing the services on which people rely would have been even further compromised. His party’s policy of attempting to freeze the council tax in England is in deep disarray. Very few councils now take up that offer and, in fact, the council tax in England rose at a higher rate than in Wales in the last year. What we do is we go on, quite unlike councils that are controlled by his party, protecting the most vulnerable from the impact of the council tax—£344 million in the budget laid in front of this Assembly earlier this month to make sure that the most vulnerable individuals and households pay no council tax at all here in Wales. The average council tax being paid by people on those benefits in England is now £181, and in many Tory authorities it is over twice that amount. The most vulnerable people, from benefits that have been frozen, are having to find money every single week to pay a tax that here in Wales nobody in those circumstances pays at all.