Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:40 pm on 25 September 2018.
Well, two things: let's kill this myth first of all that somehow the free-school-meal provision in Wales is worse than in England. It isn't. There are 3,000 more children who will receive free school meals as a result of what we're doing as a Government. An extra £10 million has been put into the budget in order for that to happen. So, this idea that, somehow, school meal provision is being slashed is simply untrue—it's simply untrue. I've already given the figures in terms of the finances and in terms of the children who will be affected.
We put forward a radical and innovative plan to help working parents. That's what the offer is for—for working parents, because we know how difficult it can be for people to go back into work with the costs of childcare. And this is what this is designed to do—to help those people who want to get to work, to remove a barrier to employment and provide the childcare that people need at a time when they need that help in order to move back into the world of employment. That's what the scheme is designed to do.