Tackling Poverty

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:13 pm on 22 May 2018.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 2:13, 22 May 2018

They will have heard that call. We've written to the UK Government asking them to reconsider the damaging changes that their tax and welfare reform policies are having on households in Wales. All I'm concerned about is, if we look at the Equality and Human Rights Commission's report published in March, that suggests that we will see the reforms that they are proposing in Whitehall push an extra 50,000 children into poverty by 2021-22. Now, the whole point, surely, of Government is to look to find ways to even out inequality and look to reduce it as much as possible, not to increase it, but that is where the UK Government are. And I'm deeply concerned about the fundamental flaws of universal credit—they've been well rehearsed in this Chamber—but despite those flaws, the UK Government is rolling the programme out. We need to have a benefits system in this country that helps people rather than penalises them, which is what the current UK Government seemingly want to do.