Over the weekend, I did a shift collecting food at Tesco in Merthyr with the Merthyr Cynon Foodbank. It was just a couple of hours of my time to assist the food bank volunteers—volunteers who give many hours of their time, week-in, week-out, to provide invaluable support to people at their time of greatest need. Can I say that while I'm willing to do what I can to assist the work of the food bank, I don't find this an uplifting experience, as Mr Rees-Mogg MP described the work of food banks? In fact, I find it a very sad indictment of our times. It's sad that so many people—4,191 in my area alone—needed the help of a food bank in the last 12 months. As we approach Christmas, that should give everyone cause to reflect.

From the evidence of those constituents who come to me for advice—I know I'm not alone in this—it's clear that a number of people needing support from food banks are those who have faced difficulties with the DWP. My constituency office is authorised to issue food bank vouchers. In the conversations with constituents, it's all too often a crisis caused by a benefit claim or a delay in payment that leads directly to their need for emergency help.

People in my constituency are facing those difficulties now, and that is before the roll-out of universal credit arrives in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney. I have real fears for some of the most vulnerable people in my community when these changes eventually take place—fears that are borne out from the evidence from those areas where universal credit has already been implemented, like the example from Torfaen that we've already heard about.

I can't help but contrast the impact of universal credit, which, remember, is not just a key part of Tory welfare reform, but part of a bigger picture of failed Tory austerity policies—contrast that with the progress that was made in the fight against child, family and pensioner poverty under previous Labour Governments. Statistics show that from the late 1990s until the arrival of the UK coalition Government in 2010, Labour had used the levers of Government to help lift 500,000 children and 900,000 pensioners out of relative poverty. As we've talked about many times, the plague of in-work poverty in our communities continues to grow as the abolition of tax credits has pretty much wiped out the potential benefit from the introduction in 2015 of George Osborne's phony national living wage.

As many of us might well highlight, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has just reported that child, family and pensioner poverty is now pretty much back at pre-1997 levels. So, as a direct result of UK Government-imposed austerity, we've gone backwards over recent years in dealing with poverty, and the roll-out of universal credit will set us back even further. I often wonder to what extent a UK Government Cabinet full of Tory millionaires can ever truly understand these issues. Do they ever get out and see first hand the impact of their policies on the least resilient members of our communities? If they do, and they persist with these changes, then they have no heart, no scruples and no compassion.

So, I'm pleased that Plaid Cymru have brought forward this motion as we clearly do share concerns over the flaws in universal credit, and I fear that without a fundamental change in UK Government policy on this, we will return to the debate many more times in the coming year.