Motion NDM6874 Rhun ap Iorwerth

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes the statement by the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on his visit to the United Kingdom.

2. Regrets the report’s findings that:

a) changes to social security have disproportionately hit women, children, and disabled people;

b) Wales has the highest relative poverty rate in the United Kingdom;

c) the Welsh Government lacks a strategic focus on tackling poverty, without clear performance targets and indicators to measure progress and impact;

d)  the Welsh Government’s inability to introduce flexibilities in the administration of universal credit, unlike its Scottish counterpart, will exacerbate the structural causes behind the increase in poverty, rough sleeping, and homelessness; and

e) that poverty is a political choice

3.  Calls on the Welsh Government to:

a) seek the powers to introduce such flexibilities in the administration of universal credit; and

b) publish a robust and meaningful plan to tackle poverty that contains clear performance targets and indicators to measure progress and impact.