Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm sure that many of us will have been watching the World Cup over the last few weeks—indeed, it's been impossible to avoid it in the past 24 hours. But I refer to that because I had the experience of reading an article recently about the terrible poverty that one of the most prominent players in that competition had experienced as a child, and he had only realised how poor the family was—he would have milk and bread for lunch every day, and he caught his mother one day watering down the milk, and then he realised from that moment on, while he was still a very young child, just how truly poor the family was.

That player is Romelu Lukaku, the Belgian striker, one of the most talented players in the world and one of the biggest stars in football, and he has written about his experiences of child poverty. I thought that was very striking, and it reminds us that there are thousands of children in Wales living in poverty, and some of them, I'm sure, living in the same kind of poverty that he experienced when he was a child. It is a cause of concern for us all, I know, that we have to come here to discuss this topic when it does arise in the Chamber, but of course we can't avoid the reality of the situation, that around a third of children in Wales are living in comparative poverty, and we must take this issue very seriously indeed and do more to tackle this problem.

Many of you will recall, back in 2005, that the Government published the strategy 'A Fair Future For Our Children', with the intention of halving and then eradicating child poverty entirely. Then, in 2006, the Government published a paper, 'Eradicating Child Poverty in Wales—Measuring Success', which set out milestones and set out clearly what steps they would take to reach that target. In 2006 also there was the child poverty action plan and, again, in the same year, the Welsh Government committed to eradicating child poverty by 2020. At that point, 27 per cent of children in Wales were living in poverty. Despite this, of course, the figures do demonstrate that 12 years later, a higher percentage of Welsh children—28 per cent—are living in comparative income poverty. And indeed, last December, the then Cabinet Secretary made a statement that the Government was to scrap the target of eradicating child poverty by 2020. Now, what sort of message does that convey in terms of priorities? 

My hope in this short debate today is to highlight the gravity of the situation, of course, but also the need for the Government to look again at its approach in tackling child poverty, and the need to do more to tackle this blight. Indeed, independent reports estimate that, now, as many as 250,000 children could be living in poverty in Wales by 2021, and that could represent an increase of 50,000 as compared to the current position. We know that children are more likely to live in relative poverty as compared to any other group—for example adults of working age or pensioners. Of those children, children living with single parents, or who live in unemployed households, or who live in households that include a disabled person, are even more likely to find themselves living in poverty.

Some parts of Wales, of course, have higher child poverty levels that should cause shame to us all. According to the End Child Poverty campaign, over half the children in Rhyl West live in poverty. As Sean O'Neill, the policy director of Children in Wales, said earlier this year—and I'll quote—