Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:05 pm on 5 February 2019.
The question of whether the administrative devolution of aspects of welfare can bring benefits by better aligning welfare with Welsh Government policies to tackle poverty and to deal with providing opportunity for all is one that's been around for a while. But there was a frisson of excitement last week, I have to say, at the welcome response of the First Minister to the question of my colleague John Griffiths on 15 January that the case has been made to explore the devolution of the administrative aspects of welfare. It's something I believed we should be open to consider when I was a Minister and I still believe it now. So, whilst recognising there are dangers, flagged indeed by the devolution of council tax benefit, where the UK Government short-changed us badly—that is a lesson learnt—I would urge him to explore this seriously, but with due diligence, with patience, neither to succumb to the over-enthusiasm of those who would ignore any dangers and seek this devolution at any cost to our Welsh exchequer base and our Welsh citizens, nor to succumb to the over-cautious who would say this is too perilous even to consider. Could the First Minister now indicate for us how he might take this work forward, and perhaps to what broad timescale, and whether he'll draw on the report of the Bevan Foundation in doing so?