Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:06 pm on 5 February 2019.
Can I thank Huw Irranca-Davies for the supplementary question, because the spirit in which he suggests we should go about this is exactly the way that I want us to do it? I want us to do it seriously, I want us to do it positively, but I want us to do it in a way that recognises that there will be difficulties in the path as well as advantages to be gained. The Member is right to point to the fact that administering parts of the benefit system is not a wholly new idea as far as Wales is concerned. The fact that we have preserved a council tax benefit scheme here in Wales, the fact that we have a discretionary assistance fund, the fact that we are taking action to abolish imprisonment as a consequence of not paying council tax and to absolve care leavers under the age of 25 from paying the council tax—those are all examples of how, when we have the ability to do it, we are using the powers we already have in the benefit administration field. The report that our colleague John Griffiths's committee produced pointed to some of the impacts on people in Wales, for example, of the benefit sanctioning regimen. And we know the punitive way in which that has been administered in Wales and in other parts of the United Kingdom and that's why I am committed to exploring whether there are further ways in which we could do things differently and better here in Wales. I hope to explore with the Wales Centre for Public Policy whether they may be the best way in which we can take these first steps forward, looking further at the evidence the committees have considered, looking at the experience of Scotland to date, and then providing an evidence base for us of the sort that Huw Irranca-Davies has pointed to, one where we have courage to look at things that may be new to us but are sufficiently alert to the dangers that might still be there.