Diolch. Although child poverty in Wales fell briefly to the UK level in the middle of the last decade, it started rising above UK levels again before the financial crash and recession, and only started falling after the change of UK Government in 2010. At 28 per cent, child poverty levels in Wales still exceeded those in Scotland and Northern Ireland last year. According to the End Child Poverty local authority data, in January, 178,676 children in Wales were considered to be in poverty after housing costs, with child poverty in Wales per capita above the UK average, where one in three live in poverty after housing costs, compared with one in four in Scotland and England.

Child poverty can't be looked at in isolation. After 19 years of Labour Welsh Government, Wales has the highest poverty rates of all UK nations at 24 per cent, the highest level in Wales since 2007-08. Wales also has the second highest poverty rates out of all the UK regions. Further, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's 'Poverty in Wales 2018' report found that 

'The proportion of households living in income poverty in Wales...remains higher than in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland' and that

'Poverty among couples with children has been rising since 2003/06.'

During Labour's last term in UK Government, the number of unemployed people increased by 1 million, youth unemployment rose by 44 per cent and the number of households where no member had ever worked nearly doubled. UK employment is now at a record high, unemployment at a 40-year low, and the number of young people out of work back down by nearly 408,000 since 2010.