1. What additional funding will the Cabinet Secretary provide to the local government and public services portfolio to support people who are in debt? OAQ51998

I thank the Member for the question. Additional funding for credit unions and the discretionary assistance fund has been included in the local government and public services budget for 2018-19. When the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill completes its passage through the UK Parliament, we anticipate a transfer to Wales of responsibility and funding for debt advice.

Can I thank the Cabinet member for that answer? You may know that it's national Stress Awareness Month, and according to the Debt Support Trust, of those in serious debt, around half of the people in that situation have mental health difficulties and contemplate suicide. It's a terrible, terrible strain on people. In 2017, citizens advice bureaux across Wales helped 28,500 people with debt problems, and many of those were cards and loan debts. So, I think it's really important that we look at how much we can bring into this area of advice and support. I know, in the last Assembly, £4.4 million was identified for front-line services, and now we're getting the primary responsibility for debt advice in the near future, I do hope this will be a high priority in the Minister's considerations. 

I thank the Member for that supplementary question. We're making nearly £6 million available this year to support organisations such as Citizens Advice, Shelter and Age Cymru to provide advice across Wales on social welfare issues, including maximising household income and managing household debt. Between April and December of last year, citizens advice bureaux helped 43,000 people in that category and helped to bring £28 million in additional income to those families here in Wales.

I completely agree with the Member that debt is inevitably associated with high levels of stress and difficulties in other parts of people's lives. I am involved in discussions with local government in Wales about council tax debt. Council tax debt is meant to include an identification of whether a household is vulnerable for other areas. Some local authorities in Wales do this very well. Some local authorities in Wales have no policy at all on vulnerability, so there is certainly ground to be gained not simply in funding, but in the way that these services are discharged on the ground. 

One thing that’s likely to cause more people to get into debt is the period that they will have to wait for their first payment under universal credit. Receiving payments on a monthly basis after that first payment will also create major debt problems for many people. I can’t understand why your Government is so reluctant to take control of certain elements of administering the benefits system and the funding framework that would come about as a result of that. Wales could then move towards a system of making universal credit payments every fortnight, alleviating some of the debt problems that local authorities in Wales are going to face as a result of universal credit.

Well, I hear what the Member is saying and, of course, I agree with her about the impact that benefit problems have on people who are dependent on benefits. The question of whether it would be best to transfer responsibility for the payments to Wales is broader than the question that we are considering today and there are many other issues, beyond the point that the Member raised, to be considered if we’re to go down that path. At present, I don’t believe that the case has been made sufficiently strongly to go down that path.

Will the Cabinet Secretary comment on the fact that one of the main reasons for rising debt in the UK is as a result of the adverse impact of further cuts by the UK Government to working-age benefits from 1 April? These are the second largest cuts to the benefits budget in the past decade. They affect around 11 million families, with £2.5 billion cuts to working-age benefits, and working-age benefits frozen, for this year, and the withdrawal of the family support element of support for new tax credits, and universal credit claims from families with children, costing them up to £545. Will he also comment further on that beneficial role that's been expressed today that can be played by advice services, credit unions, and the adoption of the real living wage, supporting people in debt, with the support of the Welsh Government?

Can I agree entirely with Jane Hutt? I said in my original answer that, of course, the Welsh Government wants to go on investing in advice services. But it is an absolute disgrace that we are having to provide those services to people whose income is being knowingly and deliberately reduced by the UK Government, when those people live at the very margins of poverty.

A number of women Members in the Assembly yesterday tried to get a discussion of the Equality and Human Rights Commission report that was published during the recess, including the leader of Plaid Cymru, because the figures contained in that report are absolutely stark and ought to be of concern to every Member of this Assembly. An extra 50,000 children being pushed into poverty in Wales not by accident, not because somebody has lost their job, not because there's been a downturn in the economy, but because of the deliberate decisions by the UK Government to freeze the benefits of those families who have the least to live on of all. And those impacts will fall not simply on children, but they will fall disproportionately on women as well. Estimates in that report suggested that women will lose on average £350 a year from these benefit cuts, while men will gain around £15. The Member is absolutely right to point to those underlying causes of the need for debt advice in Wales, and to point to those remedies, such as the real living wage, which would have a genuine impact on the circumstances of those families who live in the direst of circumstances, whose poverty is increasing, and whose prospects for the future are under such threat.