Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services – in the Senedd at 2:35 pm on 9 May 2018.

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Photo of Bethan Sayed Bethan Sayed Plaid Cymru 2:35, 9 May 2018

Thank you for the answer, but let's take a look at the record for a few minutes, shall we? Communities First—scrapped, with no replacement scheme, so the budget can be funnelled into bottomless pits in the revenue support grant or go into other areas that are currently struggling for funding, such as health boards. The child poverty strategy—scrapped, so you can avoid having to take any responsibility for failing to achieve the goals. We've even seen school uniform grants scrapped and moved, which could seriously undermine the Supporting People grant. The Independent, in March, branded Wales 'poverty stricken', with 700,000 people in relative poverty. It is a scandal. This Government was criticised last year, again, by the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee for rejecting poverty targets, as you said that poverty was for all departments. Yet we don't seem to have much action from individual departments on this issue. If poverty is an issue that crosses across all departments, then surely it needs a detailed and targeted strategy to tie all of these things together. The truth is that tackling poverty has dropped off this Government's agenda—there is no appetite to tackle the ingrained structural barriers that have entrenched poverty in many places, and you're instead hoping that taskforces and poorly funded third sector initiatives are enough to make it look like something is being done. This is not something to put into a press release, but something to be taken seriously. Considering the fundamental flaws of Communities First, I would have hoped that you would have learnt from that.