Because she has lived experience and actually because the support mechanism was launched in Wales in 2013, which this lot have tried to sabotage. The Department for Work and Pensions have been working with the devolved administrations since 2012 on plans for its roll-out, and issued the universal credit local support services framework in 2013, developed with partners including the Welsh Local Government Association, to help claimants not yet ready to budget for themselves and those who need alternative payment arrangements. The Chancellor's 2017 autumn statement announced an extra two weeks' housing benefit, a seven-day cut in the time people have to wait for their first payment, and a year rather than six months to repay hardship loans. Last month, the Chancellor confirmed £4.5 billion funding plus £1.7 billion for increased work allowances. Waiting times will be cut from five to three weeks, debt repayments will be cut, the deadline to switch benefits will be extended to three months, and help for the self-employed will be increased.

Only last Friday, Amber Rudd said that she was going to specifically address the impact of universal credit on women and single mothers, ensure women in abusive relationships have access to payments, and review the five-week wait, payments for housing, access to cash and repayment of loans. DWP are working with employers through Disability Confident to ensure that disabled people and those with long-term health conditions have the work opportunities to fulfil their potential and realise their aspirations. Remploy Cymru's work and health programme in Wales is a UK Government programme to support the long-term unemployed, disabled people and those with health conditions to overcome barriers to employment. At the DWP's request, Citizens Advice have launched a new service to help people make a universal credit claim independently—key—independently of Government, and the DWP has recruited community partnership teams of people with lived experience from expert external bodies to support vulnerable people, upskill Jobcentre Plus staff, and build bridges between the public, private and third sectors.

Independent figures confirm that both unemployment levels and the proportion of low-paid jobs are at record lows, average full-time weekly earnings have seen their biggest rise in over a decade, and UK wealth inequality has narrowed in the past decade. However, many of the levers to tackle poverty in Wales lie with Welsh Government. It's therefore deeply worrying that, after 20 years of Labour Welsh Government, the recent Equality and Human Rights Commission Wales annual review found that Wales is the least productive nation in the UK, that poverty and deprivation are higher in Wales than in other nations in Britain, and median hourly earnings in Wales are lower than in England and Scotland. 

Office for National Statistics figures on employee earnings in the UK for 2018 show that average earnings in Wales were lower and have grown slower than in other UK nations in the last year, and that Wales has had the lowest long-term pay growth among the nations of the UK. And last month’s Bevan Foundation poverty rates in Wales report found a higher relative income poverty rate in Wales than England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, a higher proportion of working-age adults in poverty in Wales than in any other UK nation, and a pensioner poverty rate in Wales far higher than in the other UK nations.

This dreadful record of failure, this devastating betrayal, is the true measure of two decades of Welsh Labour rhetoric and buck passing. We therefore call on the Welsh Government to publish a robust and meaningful plan to tackle poverty that contains clear performance targets and indicators to measure progress and impact.