8. Will the First Minister provide an update on the Welsh Government's strategy for tackling poverty in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney? OAQ53567

Llywydd, those whose lives have been most affected by poverty have been made to bear a wholly unfair burden of the austerity policies pursued by the UK Government—policies now in their ninth year. The Welsh Government focuses on those practical measures that we can take that release money into the pockets of those affected by poverty in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, and across Wales.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister, and I'm sure you'll agree that it is shocking that in my constituency, as in other Valleys communities, organisations such as Merthyr Valleys Homes are supporting schemes like holiday hampers to help tackle hunger amongst children. I'll just repeat that: in 2019, they run schemes to tackle the problem of hunger amongst children in our communities.

You'll also be aware that the Bevan Foundation recently ran an event in Merthyr Tydfil, bringing together organisations involved with food insecurity, looking at the impact of welfare reforms and its impact on health and behaviour. And just this weekend at my advice surgery, I again issued a food bank voucher to a young mother in full-time employment because she had fallen into debt as her salary, her income, was not enough to cover her outgoings and to live on. Now, in light of this, and whilst I fully appreciate that the Welsh Government does not hold many of the key economic levers, can you assure me that the Government carries out poverty proofing, not just on policies but on all decisions, in order to help tackle the root causes of poverty and hunger in our communities?

Well, Llywydd, I thank the Member for that question. On Monday of this week, I met with the Trussell Trust in Wales; it was a sobering meeting. Of course, the trust carries out fantastic work with the volunteers who they have recruited in many communities in Wales. But they said to me the pattern of use of their food banks is moving from being a crisis service, where they deal with families who somehow manage most of the time, and then every now and then are in need of help, to a chronic service, where they see families who cannot manage week in and week out because of the ways in which their incomes have been depressed and where the burden of debt, particularly, erodes their ability to meet even the most minimum of day in, day out needs.

As the Member knows, we have increased the funding for our own school holiday enrichment programme. We've been providing £0.5 million a year; we're going to provide £900,000 a year for the holiday enrichment programme this year. One of the things we want to do is to be able to move that programme beyond the school setting, where it has been up until now, so that it can work with others like Merthyr Valleys Homes, like the Caia community in Wrexham, where I met volunteers alongside my colleague Lesley Griffiths, so that we can provide that help in more settings and more places. We're very glad to do it. We're very determined to do it. It's part of our poverty-proofing measure. But to think that in a country that is the sixth richest on the face of the globe we are having to provide services to prevent children from going hungry in school holidays, that can hardly be a matter of celebration for any of us.

Thank you, First Minister.