Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:40 pm on 11 December 2018.
Well, he will know, of course, that the manifesto commitment that we gave as a party in 2016 was that we would not change the rates of income tax. But, of course, we have ensured that we have pushed forward with a fairer society. He mentions the fact that fewer people pay tax, but we still have poverty, we still have people using foodbanks—we have people in paid work using foodbanks. That's as a result, of course, of the ending of child tax credits as they were. We can't, as a society, surely, be happy when, in years gone by, we used to say, 'The way out of poverty is to get a job'. That's no longer the case. Because of a lack of job security that people have and the fact that people sometimes have more than one job, we can't honestly say, with our hands on our hearts, that people, if they get a job, will inevitably find themselves in a better situation. And that is a challenge, of course, for all parties in the future.