3. What assessment has the Cabinet Secretary made of the changes to working age benefits and the roll-out of universal credit in Wales from 1 April 2018? OAQ51933

We know the third-year freeze to most working-age benefits will be the most painful yet. I'm extremely concerned about the devastating impact welfare reforms are having on low-income households. I've repeatedly expressed our concerns to the UK Government and called for a halt to universal credit roll-out.

I thank you for that, Minister, because I was going to ask you whether you could confirm that the Welsh Government continues to make representations to the UK Government regarding the adverse impact of further cuts to working-age benefits from 1 April. These are the second largest cuts to the benefits budget in the past decade, affecting around 11 million families. And with £2.5 billion-worth of cuts to working-age benefits and working-age benefits frozen for a third year, and the withdrawal of the family element of support for new tax credit and universal credit claims from families with children, costing families up to £545, affecting 400,000 families, what will this mean for these families in Wales?

Thank you very much for that question. I can certainly confirm that the Welsh Government continues to make strong and repeated representations to the UK Government regarding the impact that their welfare reform programme and austerity programme is having on people in receipt of benefits. We are really concerned because, actually, this is just the start. Many people are starting to think, 'Well, universal credit has been talked about for so long, it's not going to happen to me if it hasn't already'. But we know that many local authority areas in Wales have yet to commence full roll-out.

We've asked for many changes to universal credit, for example to shorten the time for the first payment through the removal of waiting days, and these changes have been applied, in addition to help for those with housing costs via the two-week non-repayable transitional payment, due to be introduced from 11 April. So, we do have some success in the representations we are making. But, certainly, we don't think the UK Government has gone anywhere near far enough. So, we continue to ask for the halt of the roll-out of universal credit until the many issues that we have identified are dealt with.

The reasons are made stronger by the fact that the Equality and Human Rights Commission has recently published a report on the cumulative impact of tax and welfare reforms, and this analysis does include Wales-level data, and it does highlight the significant impact that the reforms are having on the low-income households in Wales, but particularly those with children and with protected characteristics.

Well, evidence shows that people on universal credit are moving into work faster and are staying longer in their work, and that over three quarters of the tenants were already in rent arrears before they started claiming universal credit, but, after four months, this had fallen by a third. It's always been recognised, however, that some will need extra support, which is why the Department for Work and Pensions has been working with the Welsh Government since March 2012 on plans for universal credit roll-out, and why the UK Government issued the universal credit local support services framework in February 2013, developed with the DWP and partners including the Welsh Local Government Association and Welsh Government—now called universal support—ensuring that claimants who are not yet ready to budget for themselves are protected and assisted under the new system, and that alternative payment arrangements will be available to help claimants who need additional support. Given Welsh Government involvement in this at a devolved level since 2012, and yet the repeated problems we keep hearing raised in the Chamber, why isn't it working better in Wales?

This really is a question for the UK Government. The fact that the Welsh Government does interact and engage with the UK Government on these issues, as you'd expect us to, in order to voice strongly the concerns that we're hearing amongst people within our communities, does not mean that the Welsh Government is responsible for the decisions that the UK Government makes. The UK Government has not listened to many of the recommendations that we have made. I've outlined a few that they have listened to, but, ultimately, the UK Government does need to halt the roll-out of welfare reform until such time as the many issues that remain unresolved are dealt with.