And that brings us to our next item: a Member debate under Standing Order 11.21, and I call on John Griffiths to move the motion. 

Motion NDM7029 John Griffiths, Dawn Bowden, Mike Hedges

Supported by Jayne Bryant, Siân Gwenllian, Vikki Howells, Huw Irranca-Davies, Mark Isherwood, Dai Lloyd, Lynne Neagle, Jenny Rathbone, David Rees, David J Rowlands

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Calls on the Welsh Government to produce a tackling poverty strategy, with a detailed budget and action plan for implementation.

2. Calls on the First Minister to clarify the areas of responsibility for tackling poverty within each ministerial portfolio.

3. Acknowledges and drives accountability on progress made on the tackling poverty agenda.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. The picture of poverty in Wales is stark. Wales faces the highest relative poverty rate in the United Kingdom, with almost one in four people living in income poverty today. The issue often comes down to social class. Office for National Statistics figures show that if you're a woman living in a working-class city, you're likely to die seven years earlier than if you were living in an affluent area. If you are a disadvantaged child, you are 27 per cent less likely to achieve five or more GCSEs at A to C grades. If you attend a private school, by the time you are 40, you will be earning 35 per cent more than a state school pupil. If you are homeless as an adult, you were almost certainly poor and working class as a child. Class shapes our nation. For many, it constrains their life chances and derails their aspirations. For others, it confers a life of power and privilege.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

Dirprwy Lywydd, many of us have seen the report of Professor Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, that was issued last month. The report found that employment has not proven to be an automatic route out of poverty in Wales and that in-work poverty has grown over the last decade. Twenty-five per cent of jobs paid below the living wage, and low-paid, part-time or insecure jobs are often disproportionately taken up by women, largely due to difficulties in balancing work and caring responsibilities.

Professor Alston found that the Welsh Government's approach and new 'Prosperity for All' strategy lacks strategic focus on, and individual ministerial responsibility for, poverty reduction. There's a lack of clear performance targets and indicators that would measure progress and impact. The report also found a wide consensus amongst stakeholders that the UK Government benefit changes are one of the structural causes behind the increase in poverty, with the implementation of universal credit exacerbating the issues. The pernicious impact of austerity continues to blight lives in so many communities. In Wales, attempts to tackle the stubbornly high levels of poverty are hampered by the fact that a number of key policy levers sit at Westminster.

It is frustrating that Welsh Government is unable to introduce necessary flexibility into the administration of benefits here, unlike the situation in Scotland, where they have that ability. The Equalities, Local Government and Communities Committee, which I chair, have seen this in our work looking at poverty in Wales and have recommended that the Welsh Government explore the feasibility of their administration of some benefits, which would enable us to take an approach better suited to communities in Wales. We hope to report later this year on our findings.

The latest poverty statistics have shown Wales to be the only UK nation to see a rise in child poverty, with an estimated 29.3 per cent of children living in poverty from 2017 to 2018. The gendered nature of these issues results in women continuing to be paid less than men and often struggling to find roles that allow them to earn a living while also coping with the lion's share of domestic work and childcare.

Will you take an intervention?

I will.

Diolch, John. In relation to the point you make about the gendered nature of poverty, the Child Poverty Action Group have issued some recommendations today, and in relation to the two-child limit, which is also known as the 'rape clause', they say that 300,000 fewer children—this is a UK figure, by the way—would be in poverty if the two-child limit in universal credit were to be scrapped. Of all the changes modelled in the report, this would lift the most children from poverty per pound of social security spending. So, do you share my regrets about that rape clause, and will you join me in calling for it to be scrapped?

I'm very happy to join Leanne Wood in calling for that change. I think it's a scandalous policy that is almost trying to impose the state's view of how many children working-class families should have. It's truly shocking.

Thanks, John.

Dirprwy Lywydd, in effect, women face a double burden of poverty and discrimination, and that needs to be changed and tackled. Food is centre stage in terms of many of these poverty issues today. The surge in the number of people seeking emergency food support in Wales evidences the desperate daily struggle facing many people up and down our country in just having access to basic necessities.

Following his visit to the UK, the UN rapporteur highlighted his concern that employment wasn't even a guarantee against people needing to use food banks, with one in six people referred to the Trussell Trust being in work. In 2017 to 2018, 98,350 three-day emergency food supplies were provided to people in Wales. Of these, 35,403 went to children. And, as we know, food poverty has a knock-on impact on the diet of citizens, and, in fact, the Food Foundation has shown that 160,000 children in Wales are living in households for whom a healthy diet is becoming increasingly unaffordable. Given that we are not facing a food shortage in Wales, we need a shift of focus from the provision of food aid to boosting incomes so that there is equitable access to a wholesome and nourishing diet. Without a change of direction, we risk food banks becoming an institutionalised fixture of Welsh society. This cannot be what any of us wants.

Despite this alarming picture, Dirprwy Lywydd, the Welsh Government does not currently have an overarching poverty strategy as it did in previous years, and greater leadership is required. The most commonly used measure of poverty is the number or proportion of the population who live in a household whose income is less than 60 per cent of median income, adjusted for their household size and type after housing costs. However, we still do not have a definitive definition of what poverty means that can be used by Government departments, by local authorities and private and voluntary sector organisations. This could be usefully addressed to provide clarity and consistency of understanding.

There is no identifiable figurehead within Welsh Government to lead on this issue and others, who would focus on the complexities of tackling the poverty agenda and concentrate on accountability, scrutiny and the delivery of advice and support. These are matters that the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee have repeatedly called upon the Welsh Government to rectify. In two of our recent reports looking at poverty, 'Communities First Lessons Learnt' and 'Making the economy work for people on low incomes', recommendations were made but unfortunately not accepted. The UN rapporteur found that the Welsh Government's approach and new 'Prosperity for All' strategy do not provide a strategic focus on and individual ministerial responsibility for poverty reduction. It lacks strong performance targets and indicators to measure progress and impact. I quote:

'We strongly recommend that a clear tackling poverty strategy is published, which brings together the many strands of poverty reduction work to help provide clear direction and to help the Assembly scrutinise the Government’s approach. The strategy should include clear performance indicators to ensure effective performance management, as well as setting out a broader evidence base to help underpin effective evaluation of different approaches to tackling poverty.'

This very much chimes with our equality committee's work. The report, Dirprwy Lywydd, is a wake-up call, and we need to see strong evidence of the way in which the Welsh Government is poverty-proofing its future decision making across all portfolios, policies and strategies in order to combat the concerning picture captured. Forecasts of poverty in Wales predict that the situation is set to worsen, which strengthens the need for strategic oversight and leadership. By 2021-22, it is estimated that 27 per cent of the Welsh population will be living in poverty, 39 per cent of whom will be children. This is an increase of three and 10 percentage points respectively, which is the third highest increase in all UK regions. This is why today we again call on the Welsh Government to produce a tackling poverty strategy with a detailed budget and action plan for implementation. This plan needs to be ambitious, comprehensive and all-inclusive, involving practical steps to improve the life experience of all those in poverty in Wales as soon as practically possible. Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd.

I’m pleased to support this consensual motion calling on the Welsh Government to produce a tackling poverty strategy, budget and action plan, and for this Welsh Parliament to drive accountability on progress made on the tackling poverty agenda. Whereas UK Government policy on non-devolved matters applies on both sides of the border, Welsh Government policy only applies in Wales. Some speakers today wish to give their take on policies made in Westminster, but this motion calls on us to focus on policies made in Wales.

If they choose to focus on UK Government welfare reform, I refer them to my 19 March speech on this here and to my 28 March speech at the Policy Forum for Wales seminar on reducing poverty in Wales. If they choose, as we've heard, to focus on the UN special rapporteur’s report on extreme poverty and human rights, I endorse the opening speaker's comments about the section on Wales, which included that Wales faces the highest relative poverty rate in the UK, that 25 per cent of jobs in Wales pay below the minimum wage, and that although a poverty-specific action plan and the post for communities and tackling poverty were scrapped in 2017, the Welsh Government’s new 'Prosperity for All' strategy has

'no strategic focus or ministerial responsibility for poverty reduction, and lacks clear performance targets and progress indicators'.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies report on 'Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2018' found that, between 2011 and 2017, absolute poverty fell by 2.5 percentage points to 19 per cent; that growth in employment over this period caused absolute child poverty to fall by 3 per cent to 26 per cent, surpassing falls seen in the pre-recession period; that pensioners were still considerably less likely to be in poverty than other demographic groups; and that relative poverty in the entire population—that's UK—has been broadly flat for the last 15 years and remains below the levels seen in the mid 1990s.

Although the ONS reported that income inequality had increased slightly last year, they said that this was a reversal of the trend seen in previous years and that

'it may be too early to draw definite conclusions from this specific downtick'.

UN data puts the UK at fifteenth on the list of the happiest places to live, and, in March, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development figures showed that personal well-being levels have improved across the UK, as have mental health scores, increasing by 4.6 per cent between 2011 and 2016 to 63.2 per cent—virtually the European average. Only last month, however, research commissioned by the End Child Poverty Network showed that Wales was the only UK nation to see a rise in child poverty last year. As the Children's Commissioner for Wales said in March,

'Welsh Government has a Child Poverty Strategy which outlines its long-term ambitions, but at the moment there’s no clear plan', and, she said,

'Welsh Government should write a new Child Poverty Delivery Plan, focusing on concrete and measurable steps'.

Last October’s Equality and Human Rights Commission report, 'Is Wales Fairer?', found that

'poverty and deprivation still remain higher in Wales than other British nations; Wales is the least productive nation in the UK, and median weekly earnings in Wales are lower than in England and Scotland.'

As they stated,

'we can make a difference, but this can only be achieved with both a bold vision and a deliverable action plan'.

February’s Bevan Foundation ‘State of Wales’ briefing on low pay found that both the number and percentage of workers paid below real living wage in Wales had increased, with women, disabled people and black and minority ethnic groups at heightened risk of being in low-paid work.

The Bevan Foundation calls for the development of

'an anti-poverty strategy that clearly sets the steps that the Welsh Government intend to take to reduce the number of people living in poverty in Wales'.

As Oxfam Cymru states,

'It’s not the case that anti-poverty strategies don’t work; it’s about how those strategies are targeted. The lack of a strategy denies the tackling poverty agenda a clear direction'.

And as NEA Cymru states, 

'the Welsh Government should designate fuel poverty as an infrastructure priority'.

As I said in 2006,

'all mainstream political parties want to tackle poverty. Social Justice will only be delivered by really empowering people to fulfil their potential and to take ownership in their own communities.'

And as the Wales Council for Voluntary Action said in 2013,

'Welsh Government and the sector need to refresh current engagement mechanisms to develop, promote and monitor a Programme for Action based upon co-production and common ground.'

So, this means dumping any dead dogma, fully embracing social and business enterprise, and doing what works. Diolch yn fawr.

Here we are again, lamenting the fact that, in an allegedly developed and civilised state, substantial numbers of people rely on food banks for basic nutrition and live in homes that make them ill. According to the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank, more than 120,000 deaths in the UK could have been prevented since 2012, had it not been for austerity. The Westminster Government's policies are killing people, and I won't apologise for saying that.

Recent statistics from the End Child Poverty coalition show that almost one in three children in Wales are in poverty—one out of every two in some council wards. Wales is the only nation in these islands to see an increase in child poverty. To call these figures a wake-up call would imply they were unexpected, but sadly we've got used to such bad news on a rolling basis. It's easy to describe the problem, but what about solutions? What do we in Plaid Cymru say that the Welsh Government should do? What would we do if we were running the Government? 

We often use the term 'co-production' without really meaning it, but the concept remains a valid and potentially helpful one. Too often, people living in poverty and working-class people in general are not listened to. Policy is something that's done to them, rather than something that they are a part of. So, I want those who oversee the delivery of services crucial to tackling poverty to ensure that proper representation of people experiencing poverty in decision making. The recent remarks of Philip Hammond, claiming that poverty doesn't exist and dismissing the findings of the UN rapporteur, illustrate the battle that people in poverty face getting their problems taken seriously by wealthy millionaires who make decisions about their lives. How many MPs are now millionaires? We have to tackle the under-representation of working-class people in all aspects of public life. I want any bodies that are tasked with tackling poverty to be able to demonstrate how they are tackling this imbalance, how they are including and listening to people who are living in poverty. That is how real co-production would work.

The second solution: we must have administrative control over welfare immediately. Only this will enable us to start joining the dots, allowing us to create a Welsh new deal—a green one, of course—that helps people into careers and provides them with the means to be able to provide for themselves, rather than bully and sanction them for things like attending funerals.

Third solution: we must stop the poor decision making we're seeing by various public services. We've seen cuts proposed, even if some have been reversed, to eligibility for school uniform grants, free school meals, bus services that serve poorer communities, cuts to subsidies for the sports clubs that service deprived areas—the list goes on and can be extensive. But it reflects a culture where public services to poor people are the collateral damage of a failure to plan truly preventative services. Austerity has resulted in the poor being worse off while the wealthy have become wealthier. This has to stop.

Homelessness is a growing scourge on our society. The Welsh Government must adopt a housing first policy as the philosophy underpinning homelessness policy, which of course means that you must stop dithering and you must abolish priority need, like everyone is telling you to do. Implement the recommendations of the crisis report immediately. We can't wait for that to happen over the next 10 years. It's a scandal that there has been no strategy, no overarching programme to tackle poverty, since the Communities First programme was abolished. With Brexit set to pull even more millions of pounds out of Wales's most deprived communities, how can we ensure that these communities don't sink even further?

I remember back in 1997 the campaign to set up this Assembly—how, after almost two decades of Tory rule back then, we needed an Assembly to protect people against the Tories' worst excesses. In Scotland, with their stronger devolution settlement, they've gone some way towards mitigating the worst effects of the Tories' policies. It's more than disappointing that we've not been able to do the same here, and it's about time that we changed it.

Imagine being a youngster waking up on one of the last school days in December, a time when excitement and fun runs through the school like electric. It means concerts, games and an exchange of cards, but then you realise you won't be going in that day. You won't be going in because it's Christmas jumper day, and you don't have a Christmas jumper; your family can't afford one. 

A research project undertaken by the Association of School and College Leaders in the north-west uncovered this pattern of absenteeism amongst disadvantaged pupils on 14 December last year. In truth, it is just the latest example of the stigma that comes with poverty, and a further example of how, unthinkingly, we are piling unseen costs, costs that cannot be met by all, on the average school year. I hope that the ASCL research can be added to the very many examples we see in Welsh schools today, from dressing-up days to school trips and events, which risk undermining so much of the good work being done in other areas of education policy. 

Today's debate, of course, is about a much wider set of considerations, but these are the simple, heartbreaking and ultimately damaging daily realities behind the figures we are talking about. There is nothing inevitable about poverty, and I want to thank the other Members who've brought forward this timely and important debate today. I fully support the motion and strongly believe it is time for a step change in our approach to poverty in Wales. Though it has now signalled a change of direction, I believe the Welsh Government was right to adopt the target of ending child poverty by 2020, and I regret the decision to axe it. This is an agenda that demands ambition. But, as the Bevan Foundation has said, with so many of the important policy drivers being non-devolved, this target was only something that could be achieved by working with a UK Government that also fully committed to that ambition. Sadly, since 2010, that has ceased to be the case.

The result is that, for a decade now, child poverty figures in Wales have stagnated, and they have now in fact started to rise—an unparalleled failure of our economic model in the UK, the unjustifiable price of austerity, a trap for future generations. The most brutal truth of the Conservative record in Government is that avoidable deaths associated with poverty, as highlighted by Leanne Wood, have risen through the age of austerity. It is to Welsh Government's credit that, through this period, with shrinking budgets available, worklessness has reduced, the employment gap with England closed, and the attainment of poorer pupils is being prioritised. But, as the recent publication of the youth opportunity index showed, there is a persistent postcode penalty in Wales that remains the same today as it did at the beginning of devolution. The research from the Learning and Work Institute showed that education and work opportunities remain thinnest on the ground in deprived areas, with my own local authority of Torfaen being ranked lowest on that list. 

So, there are plenty of elements of devolved policy that do need reassessing to add urgency to our anti-poverty agenda. I hope today will be the moment for Welsh Government to say 'yes' to revisiting an approach on child poverty in particular, and on poverty more generally. The First Minister will know, because he was finance Minister at the time, that the Children, Young People and Education Committee was critical about the lack of clarity in last year's budget on how and where the Government is focusing its resources relating to poverty. We recommended more clarity on ministerial ownership relating to poverty, a refreshed child poverty strategy to reflect the policy changes since 2015, and the publication of future budget information to show exactly how that new strategy is delivered and outcomes improved.

I realise there's a desire in Government to move away from a strategy factory mentality, and I do recognise the attraction of making poverty everyone's business in Government, rather than shoving it all into one department with a small budget. But the truth is that, so far, without the fundamental shift in the way the rest of the Government has worked to improve this agenda, a lack of clear strategy and ownership is just allowing drift to become the norm. The concerns of the Bevan Foundation, Oxfam, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the children’s commissioner come from a deep understanding of this agenda, and it’s time we acted on what they’re telling us. Fifty-five thousand children living in poverty are not eligible for a free school meal, a policy area that’s been devolved to us here. And even those who are eligible face multiple and unnecessary barriers. There is more action the Welsh Government could take to end holiday hunger—a consistent finding from recent reports. I could go on, but what this all comes back to is the need for a clear poverty strategy driven by three things: clear targets, transparent budgets and strong ministerial leadership. We know why child poverty has risen in Wales—that is a decade of Tory austerity—but that does not give us a free pass to do nothing. Indeed, it must challenge us to do even more, and I hope that work can start today.

I’d like to associate myself with the remarks of both Lynne Neagle and John Griffiths and most of what Leanne Wood said. I think that we’re in almost total agreement on these issues. There are far too many people in Wales, including many children, living in poverty, which means they’re inadequately fed, they live in houses that are going to be cold when they should be warm, and they live in houses that are not necessarily waterproof or windproof. The most commonly used measure of poverty John Griffiths outlined earlier, and, according to the Bevan Foundation, one in four of the population of Wales are living in poverty. It’s not just—[Interruption.] It's not just in every area. If it was one in four in every area it would be bad, but, actually, it’s one in four across Wales, but, in some areas, it’s close to one in two: children living in workless households, adults in workless households, social housing tenants, lone parents, people from non-white ethnic groups. In terms of the number of people in poverty, people who are disabled, people living in working households, social housing tenants—.

We’ve seen a huge growth in foodbanks, and that really has been a problem, that far too many people are in employment and they have to go to foodbanks to eat. Foodbanks have become the soup kitchens of the twenty-first century. There has been a huge growth in in-work poverty. Whereas we often highlight zero-hour contracts, a bigger problem is the low guaranteed-hour contracts: you’re guaranteed a low number of hours—perhaps five or seven hours a week—but you usually work far longer hours. Just don’t be ill, because then you go back to your seven hours. Or, in some weeks, when there’s not enough work, you end up having to work only those seven hours. And what happens then is you multiply the hours by your minimum wage and you’re in very serious trouble; you cannot afford all the things that you need to live.

Many work several jobs, several being three, four or five. They have to juggle childcare with these jobs, hoping that the hours—

Will you take an intervention?

Certainly.

In regard to the comments earlier about having a social fabric and being involved in your community, do you think that that is actually possible for somebody that's working two, three, and sometimes four zero-hour contracts?

Well, it's very difficult, because people actually can tend to work, some weeks, 40 or 50 hours. Unfortunately, in other weeks they're working 10 hours. They can't plan anything. Childcare becomes a nightmare; they've got huge problems across the whole of their lives. So, yes, it's very difficult to be involved in helping to run the local football team if you don't know if you're going to be working one hour on a Saturday or 10 hours on a Saturday. 

According to the Bevan Foundation, recent changes to the benefits system, including the benefit freeze and the roll-out of universal credit, has significantly reduced family income. The cumulative effect and impact of welfare reform has left households with children over £5,000 worse off—[Interruption.] Yes, certainly. Whilst it has left households with a disabled adult over £3,000 worse off. Mark.

Do you acknowledge research, equally worrying, in 2008 by the Bevan Foundation and Save the Children, which found that one in four children in Wales were living in poverty—the relative poverty measure—and that 90,000 in 2008 were living in severe poverty, the highest level in the UK? So, this isn't a new problem, and it's definitely a problem we've got to grasp.

It's not a new problem, but universal credit has made it worse for the unemployed. We all did—or most of us did—fought an election and we had a month off work when we didn't have any income. And how did we survive? Savings and credit cards. How do people who haven't got those survive when they have to go on for months without universal credit? They don't. They either fall victim to doorstep lenders, or they end up having to borrow from family and friends who are often equally as badly off as they are.

The poor are paying the price of austerity. I was hugely disappointed at the closure of Communities First. There were faults with it, but I thought it was something we should've kept going; put it right, rather than closing down. I was also hugely disappointed that the First Minister did not create a Minister dealing with poverty and disadvantaged communities.

The actions the Welsh Government can do are: develop an anti-poverty strategy that clearly sets the steps that the Welsh Government intends to take to reduce the number of people living in poverty in Wales; ensure that all public sector workers employed by bodies directly funded by the Welsh Government are paid the real living wage; make paying the real living wage be a pre-condition for contracting with public sector bodies funded via the Welsh Government either directly or indirectly; make paying the real living wage a pre-condition of grants and loans to private companies; ban exploitative contracts by Welsh Government funded bodies and their contractors and sub-contractors; make financial support for companies, both grants and loans, dependent on non-exploitative contracts; commit to turn Wales into a living wage country; and learn from the errors made in Communities First and create a new anti-poverty scheme based upon the best of Communities First. Many of us had some excellent Communities First schemes in our communities, which have very sadly been lost.

Thank you very much to John Griffiths for bringing this debate forward today. I'm pleased to sign up to it. I also want to say that I respect and admire John's commitment in this area over a number of years, and I'm sure that everyone would echo that here.

The emphasis this afternoon—and I'm pleased about that—has been on what we in Wales can do and what the Welsh Government can do. Yes, cases of poverty are complex and the causes of poverty are complex, but there is far more that the Government here could be doing, even within the restrictive boundaries of the devolution settlement. I wish to list those that I think are important and should be addressed as a matter of urgency by this Government.

One—we need to co-ordinate the Government's efforts in a far more effective way. That would include a tackling poverty strategy and an action plan on child poverty, including milestones and targets, which should be measurable, so that we can have a clear method of reporting against the strategic objectives in Wales.

Two—we need to be clear as to who, among Welsh Government Ministers, is responsible for issues on children and child poverty. Who is leading on this work?

Three—the Government needs to review its early intervention strategies and plans such as Flying Start. Forty-four per cent of children living in poverty don't qualify for Flying Start and we need to move the focus back to early intervention and the creation of a national and local strategy in terms of early intervention.

Four—the Government needs to review the childcare offer, which is deficient. It needs to be extended and the emphasis should be placed in the right place and that includes early years education.

Five—we need to strengthen the work of the fair work commission substantially and we need to use public procurement processes to increase salaries.

Six—we need to press for the devolution of elements of the administration of the welfare state to Wales, so that we can create a culture that is far more empathetic around welfare. I simply cannot understand why a Labour Welsh Government couldn't understand the rationale of the devolution of elements of the administration of the welfare system to Wales.

Seven—we need a far more ambitious plan in terms of social housing and the adoption of a 'housing first' policy in order to tackle homelessness.

I am focusing on those seven areas. We've heard a few others mentioned, but for me, these are the most important that we should focus on, and do so as a matter of urgency. There is far more work that could be done, but these are the issues that the Government needs to address immediately. Thank you. 

I'd like also to thank my fellow Gwent Welsh Labour colleague John Griffiths AM for bringing this very important debate to this Chamber. I agree with much of what has been said by most Members. So, let us be frank: we live in a capitalist economy in a world dominated by capitalism and the divergent economic pyramid it produces. Whilst this indeed offers many opportunities for some—and the sales of Rolls-Royces, indeed, have escalated—it will also offer, and will always offer, the real political and moral dilemma of how do we ensure that there is an equitable distribution of wealth throughout our society for our citizenry, which we all serve.

This is the dilemma for us all—for our age, and for all of our nations. In the United States of America, President Lyndon Baines Johnson famously set the powers of the United States Government to wage an unconditional war on poverty, and he was right to do so. His noble aim of a truly great society could not and did not, however, eradicate poverty. In the United Kingdom, it is now sadly, widely, by many, just accepted that the gulf between the richest and the poorest in our society is stratospheric and stark. It is seismic, and worse, it is systemic. Indeed, you have to look back to the Labour Government of James Callaghan of 1976, according to a report published by the New Economics Foundation, to see a Britain where the proceeds of our nation's wealth were equitably distributed. Despite the valiant mitigations from this Welsh Labour administration, we today remain here debating what is a very disparate and very unfair world for many.

But it is Welsh Government policy that seeks at its heart fairer distribution of the fruits of work and labour for the many, not just the few. We on this side have a radically different view of how our society should be and become a fairer society through fairer social and economic policy for all of our peoples. The Welsh Labour Government continues to commit itself every single day to tackle the scourge of poverty across Wales, with the levers—which we must accept are limited—we have available to us. I support recent initiatives. Earlier this year, the economy and transport Minister Ken Skates welcomed an extra £2 million of EU funding to tackle in-work poverty and tackle the challenges faced by lower-skilled workers in south-east Wales. We must recognise the impact of Brexit upon poverty. So, to quote:

'Making sure we have a workforce with the skills necessary to thrive in a modern economy is absolutely central to our Economic Action Plan.'

So, with Ministers like Ken Skates and a socialist First Minister, the Welsh Government will continue the battle against the UK policies that cause poverty. I will take the liberty to contrast that to Tory UK Government policy. Let's listen to external and globally respected voices—and I will mention the United Nations. The United Kingdom social safety net, it quotes in its recent report—one of many—has been

'deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos'.

The special rapporteur on extreme poverty, Philip Alston, said—and I quote—that 'ideological' cuts to public services—and let us remember, it is public services that the most vulnerable in our society use, not the rich—since 2010 have led to 'tragic consequences'. Tragic consequences that are, as has been said already today, killing people. A government's first priority is to protect its citizenry. He concluded that

'The bottom line is that much of the glue that has held British society together since the Second World War has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos'.

The professor said that Government policies have led to the 'systemic immiseration'—economic impoverishment—of a significant part of the UK population, meaning that they, the Tory Government, have continually put people further into poverty. So, I will take no lessons today from the benches opposite, who are happy to cheerlead for a UK Government waging an ideological war on the working classes and the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. We cannot negate the harm of welfare reform, and we should not negate the harm of austerity. Let nobody then be in any doubt: it's in this Government's DNA to tackle for all of our people the injustices of economic disparity and combat the poverty caused by purposeful and strategic UK policy.

Our work will continue to be done in this place and we must, as has been stated, recommit ourselves every day to undertake optimum policy, and, if necessary, far more strategically. And I look forward every day to seeing a Labour socialist Government in power in Westminster to work in partnership with this place so it will enable the levers available. Together we can tackle the endemic poverty that is ruining people's lives and poisoning every day the aspirations of all of those let down by a cruel UK Tory social policy base. 

I want to use this opportunity to focus on one aspect, which is children in poverty. I know that other people have also mentioned it, but I just wanted to look at the way in which we look after our children. 

Prue Leith, one of the most iconic cookery experts, said at the Hay Festival last week that food is a demonstration of love and, frankly, we don't love our children enough, because too many families don't cook meals and rely instead on pre-prepared dishes that are often adulterated with sugar, salt and fat to increase their profits.

Poverty is a really complex issue, because although class, as John quite rightly said, is a major determinant, nevertheless there are different people within the working class who have different responses to the challenges of low wages, of inadequate schooling and all the rest of it. So, it's a really complex issue. The power of the advertising industry is certainly a factor in this issue, and the way it comes back to the Government's strategy is that school meals are often the only proper meal that many children get. And then, as the Bevan Foundation's 'Holiday Hunger' report has pointed out, the problem becomes acute in the holidays, when that school meal is no longer available. 

Now, the school holiday enrichment programme, which was trialled only two or three years ago, has been very successful in demonstrating that it really does have a major impact on those children who take part in it. Food Cardiff did some research that showed that one third of those children had gone without a meal the previous day before they came to the Food and Fun holiday scheme. So, while it's fantastic that the new Welsh Government has committed a further £400,000 to this scheme, it is a drop in the ocean when we look at the actual statistics. Some 2,500 schoolchildren benefited from this system last summer; hopefully, there'll be a lot more this summer. But it really isn't touching the at least 76,000 children who are eligible for free school meals in Wales and the 160,000 to 180,000 children who are living in relative poverty, many of them in working households. 

We know that getting a job is the best route out of poverty. Seventy per cent of children are living in workless households, 35 per cent in families where there is one earner, and 15 per cent even in households where there are two wage earners. So, part of that is down to the rubbish wages that some employers pay. I met a man on the street in my constituency this morning who told me that he was offered a job for £4.50 an hour in a restaurant. This is completely illegal, because it's about half the minimum wage. But I'm sure that that is what many companies are getting away with because there isn't enough enforcement going on. 

I just want to look at who is actually eligible for a free school meal, because we know that, on school census day in 2017-18, fewer than half the children who live in relative income poverty and are in full-time education in Wales actually received a free school meal, and one quarter of the children who were eligible for a free school meal didn't eat one. Even some of the ones who were actually signed up as being eligible didn't actually take it up. So, this is a really complicated problem.

Who is eligible today, now that we have not just income support and employment and support allowance, but also universal credit? Well, the Welsh Government had to restrict those on universal credit to those with a net earnings threshold of £7,400 after housing costs had been taken into consideration. It's a very blunt instrument, because a household where there are two adults and one child needs less income than a household where there are two adults and three children. So, by setting a cap that only considers earned income, the Welsh Government, unfortunately, is exacerbating poverty in larger families, a group that are already at greater risk of living in poverty. 

There are lots of different ways in which we could tackle the issues of inadequate diet in health, educational attainment being lower, as well as the really challenging problem we have of obesity. But we live in a country where one third of all the food produced never reaches the table; it's thrown away. So, there has to be a way in which we can resolve this problem and we have to look at what we can do to resolve it, because the difference between local authorities about who gets a free school meal, even if they're in debt on their cashless system in secondary schools, there's a huge difference in that, and there's a huge difference in the level of school meal debt between different local authorities—from £770 in Rhondda Cynon Taf to a whacking £85,000 in Gwynedd. 

Are you winding up, please?

So, these are some of the complex issues that would be great if we had a really good strategy that we could all be scrutinising. Thank you. 

Thank you. Huw Irranca-Davies. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you, John, for initiating this debate, and also to everybody who's contributed, and it's a delight to follow Jenny as well with a focus on food. And actually, it's on a specific area that I want to focus my short comments. I want to focus on the issues of hunger and food poverty, and the campaign that has been running nationally for some months now, which is the Co-operative Party campaign nationally for food justice.

It starts from the basic premise that healthy, nutritious, affordable food should be a basic right for everyone. It doesn't matter what your circumstances are, where you live, where you come from, healthy, nutritious, affordable food should be a right. Yet we've got too many people right across the UK and here in Wales who are going hungry, and it is after a decade of Tory austerity; we cannot ignore that. We have an inexorable rise in food banks; it's one symptom of a larger problem. It's been made worse by cruel, pernicious tax and welfare changes that have hit the lowest paid and the most vulnerable in our society, and in our communities where we live.

The causes of hunger are rooted in austerity, and UK Tory policies of universal credit, the benefits cap and freeze and the bedroom tax have all played their part, but we also have, as has been mentioned in this debate, a dysfunctional economy that no longer, too often, pays a fair day's pay for a fair day's work for too many people. And we have a broken housing market that adds to poverty and debt. We simply have too many people going hungry on a daily basis in the UK, in the sixth richest country on the planet. 

And yet, at the same time, we have a relentless growth in obesity and type 2 diabetes and other conditions, which can devastate the quality of life of an individual, which will shorten lives. They also impact, of course, on our NHS. And some communities now are effectively food deserts, where people simply cannot access nutritious, healthy, affordable food. This is a UK-wide problem of hunger, of poor nutrition, and it's driven by continuing austerity and pernicious tax and welfare changes. 

But we can't ignore the recent findings of the South Wales Food Poverty Alliance report, which states that in 2017-18, 98,350 three-day emergency food supplies were provided to people in Wales in crisis—in crisis—by food banks by the Trussell Trust. Of these, over 35,000 went to children in this country. According to the Food Standards Agency, a fifth of people on Wales are worried about running out of food, and a quarter of 16 to 34-year-olds surveyed in Wales actually ran out of food in the past year. 

The Food Foundation, as John mentioned, has shown that 160,000 children in Wales are living in households for whom a healthy diet is increasingly unaffordable. Reception-age children in Wales are significantly more likely than the Welsh average to be obese if they live in areas of higher deprivation. And the gap between obesity prevalence in the most and the least deprived quintiles of our society has increased from 4.7 per cent in 2015-16 to 6.2 per cent in 2016-17. Everything is going in the wrong direction.

So, we can and we must use every mechanism at our disposal to tackle this in Wales, even if at a UK level, out of our control, the Government seems hell-bent on making things worse. And we have the right policy and legislative framework to do this with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, and we have a cross-Government commitment to tackling poverty in all it forms. But as we've heard so often today, it's the strategy, the direction, the milestones and the clear leadership on this that we require.

But we need to do more to tackle food justice. Practical actions. So, our campaign is calling for councils throughout Wales to designate a lead Member for food poverty; to draw up a food action plan, working with local partners on the ground; to take inspiration from the emerging community responses to food poverty; to work with the existing local food partnerships, or if not, in the absence of it, to set one up; and to get a measure of the scale of the problem in your area, because we know that what you measure gets acted upon. And at an all-Wales level, Minister, underpinned by our flagship well-being of future generations Act, we're calling for the recognition of the right to healthy and nutritious food and a commitment to delivering food justice in the new national milestones in Wales, so that we can track progress.

It's been a delight for me, Dirprwy Lywydd, to see so many Members of this Assembly and councillors across the land and ordinary people signing up to this food justice campaign. There have been many Ministers who've signed up to it as well. So, in the temperate and, I think, considered mood of this debate today, let's turn this campaigning energy into real action at a local and national level. Let's make that access to nutritious, healthy food a right and take the practical steps to make sure that there is not hunger in the sixth wealthiest country in the world. 

Thank you. Can I now call the Minister for Economy and Transport, Ken Skates? 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Before I respond to the debate, may I just say that during the course of this debate, Members may have seen news emerging concerning the future of the Ford Bridgend engine plant? It is pure speculation at the moment and Ford are not commenting on the matter. I can tell Members that I have been in regular contact with the First Minister today. I've also spoken with the general secretary of Unite, with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Greg Clark, and also with the Secretary of State for Wales, Alun Cairns, and I am seeking urgent talks with Ford. I will keep Members updated on the matter accordingly as soon as I have more information.

Dirprwy Lywydd, can I start my response to this debate with a sincere thanks to Members for their excellent contributions in this particular debate? I'd like to thank specifically those that brought forward this very important motion today. I'm pleased to be able to have the chance to respond on behalf of the Welsh Government. It's fair to say that when we talk in the Chamber about the things that matter to our communities—the creation of jobs, the importance of fair work, which has been mentioned by so many today, the need for high-quality education or the construction of good-quality housing—what we are really saying, whether it's explicitly stated or not, is that we want everybody to have the opportunity to live a full life, a life free of the shackles and the restrictions that poverty imposes. And as someone who grew up in north-east Wales, the son of a steelworker, who grew up in a working-class community and attended state schools, the elimination of poverty was the very reason why I got into elected politics. It's informed everything that I have done in each of my ministerial roles that I have been privileged to hold—the desire to stop a child's destiny from being determined by what they were born into.

I think the role that I have now is particularly important in this regard. It is the Minister for Economy and Transport that is standing up to respond to this debate today because it's that role that encapsulates the approach this Welsh Government takes to the fight against poverty. Namely, that it is only through a strong, resilient and dynamic economy that all people across all parts of Wales can benefit, and, in turn, doing so, can help in the eradication of poverty. Our economic action plan has been designed with that explicit purpose.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I am proud, as we look back over 20 years of devolution, of what the Welsh Government has done across that time to support individuals and families who find their lives constrained by poverty. We've developed a progressive model of support for people in Wales that, over the course of devolution, has been added to and indeed enhanced. It's focused on the small things, the bread and butter things, that have demonstrated in an intensely practical way that the concerns of working families are concerns. It's a social wage, comprising free prescriptions, the education maintenance allowance, free swimming, the free bus pass, the school holiday nourishment scheme that my colleague Kirsty Williams is expanding, and of course free school meals, on which we are spending £7 million more this year than last year. For some families in Wales, this social wage can be as much as £2,000, taking pressure off household budgets. And that approach has focused on making the best possible use of the powers available to us here in the Welsh Government in the toughest of circumstances.

But after the 2016 Assembly elections, what became abundantly clear was that as a Welsh Labour Government we needed an approach that more effectively harnessed the power that we had right across Government, and that as an economy Minister I was effectively placed to lead that work. As Minister for Economy and Infrastructure, I was very clear that resilient communities and resilient economies are underpinned by good-quality local employment, connected infrastructure, and skills for work. I'm incredibly proud of the stronger economy that the Welsh Labour Government has delivered over the last few years. There are now 300,000 more people in work in Wales since 1999, and the proportion of working-age people with no qualifications has more than halved. Perhaps most encouraging of all, economic inactivity rates in Wales are now broadly comparable or below the UK average for the first time ever.

But of course we recognise that the next five years will present huge challenges for our communities. Withdrawal from the European Union and the full impact of welfare reform will be compounded by the increasing pace of technological change and its impact on work and the labour market. Using all the economic levers that are at our disposal to ensure communities and the individuals living in them are more resilient to the challenges they will face over the next few years will be vital to our approach to tackling poverty, and that's why we have developed a cross-Government approach to support fairer, stronger economies across all our regions.

For individuals needing skills for work, a promise of a new employability programme that brings together our existing programmes into one single support system built around the individual, tailored for the individual, and better designed to tackle inactivity. For individuals wanting higher skills, a promise to create at least 100,000 all-age apprenticeships. For businesses wanting to grow and take on people, a new economic contract to drive up the availability of fair work and deliver the sort of inclusive growth that Huw Irranca-Davies talked about the need for. For working parents of three and four-year-olds, a pledge of 30 hours free childcare, 48 weeks of the year, to help more people back into the labour market. And for communities, investment in stronger, more integrated infrastructure, to ensure that major projects such as the metro schemes bring truly transformational change to local economies and local communities. We've developed this because we believe this to be the best strategy to tackle poverty in Wales in the long term.

But, Dirprwy Lywydd, as Rhianon Passmore—[Interruption.] Yes, indeed.

So, therefore, you're confirming today that you have no intention of producing an anti-poverty strategy, and that the Government will not be having an implementation plan around that strategy.

Well, as the Member is aware, we already have numerous means and ways of tackling poverty. 

That's a yes. That's a yes. There will be no—. So, there won't be a strategy.

The overriding objective of this Government is to make sure that every person in Wales has an opportunity to work, ensuring that there is a job in every household. That's the best way out of poverty and that's the best way to avoid poverty. But, Dirprwy Lywydd, as Rhianon Passmore clearly said, there is one important actor in this debate that needs to step up to the plate. For nearly a decade now, austerity and welfare cuts have seen the UK Government reaching into the pockets of the poorest and the most vulnerable people to finance an economic dogma. And, to give you a sense of what we have been through, had our budgets in Wales stood still between 2009 and 2019, we would have £800 million more to spend on public services. However, had they grown in line with the economy, we would have had £4 billion more from the UK Government to invest in our country. I'll give way.

Do you recognise that child poverty in Wales started rising in 2004, that it was already at the highest levels in the UK before the credit crunch and that, a decade ago, 90,000 children in Wales were in severe poverty and over one in four were living in relative poverty? This didn't begin in 2010.

Are you therefore ignoring the responsibility—the clear responsibility—that the UK Government has had and continues to have for poverty rates in Wales? Four billion pounds more to invest; that's how much we should have had. That's how much we would have had had there been a Government of a different composition in Westminster. The tax and welfare regime that the current UK Government operate has a huge impact on poverty rates in Wales. Clearly, they could play their part, and they should play their part, in calling off the damaging and divisive programme of cuts and investing in economies that need their support.

Dirprwy Lywydd, our approach has been reinforced by the decision of the new First Minister to make tackling poverty a priority area in the Welsh Government's budget planning process. The Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs is leading a working group as part of our budget preparations to increase the impact of our collective investment. The Minister for Housing and Local Government is also developing the work we are doing to tackle child poverty, leading a review of funding programmes to ensure that we have the maximum impact on the lives of children living in poverty. That work is helping us to enhance our approach and to develop a clearer message to our partners in the public, private and third sectors about the collaboration that we need to deliver better outcomes with.

I'd like to thank Members for their contributions today and commit to working with them as we take forward this important mission of ending poverty in Wales.

Thank you. Can I call on Dawn Bowden to reply to the debate?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and can I thank everyone who's taken a keen interest in this debate and contributed? With the time available to me, I don't think I'm going to be able to go through everybody's contributions, but I do want to thank John for tabling the debate and Mike Hedges for co-sponsoring it. Within the debate, we heard John Griffiths open by talking about the highest relative poverty rate in the UK and the implications that that has in terms of health, education, employment prospects, housing and particularly the hugely damaging impact on child poverty and the disproportionate impact on women. All the contributors to the debate talked about the impact of child poverty, and I'll just pick out a few of those.

Mark Isherwood talked specifically about in-work poverty but I think failed to recognise the responsibility that the UK Government has for leading to those levels of poverty in work and child poverty. Leanne Wood quite rightly called him out on that one and raised that as a major area. She also talked about the need for Government to listen to people in poverty and involve them in decision making. Lynne Neagle talked about the work of her committee particularly around child poverty and she talked about the stigma of poverty, exampled by the unaffordability of children being involved in things like school activities. Mike Hedges referred to the growth in food banks and poor housing and, in fact, referenced the disproportionate number of disabled people living in poverty as well.

Siân Gwenllian called for a tackling poverty action plan in the poverty strategy. You had seven points, Siân, but I haven't got time to go through all of them.

Will you take an intervention? I was very disappointed to hear that the Government has no intention of bringing forward this much-needed strategy, which all of us who have contributed to the debate today have called for.

I will come on to what I think about the Government's position in a moment. Rhianon Passmore obviously referred to the equitable distribution of wealth, and I think, for those of us who are socialists, that's a fundamental point for all of us: fairer distribution of wealth.

Jenny Rathbone and Huw Irranca-Davies both talked about the impact of food poverty. Huw Irranca particularly talked about the Co-op campaign around food justice and Jenny highlighted the problems of the lack of good daily nutrition and holiday hunger, when children are going without school meals.

I think the impacts of poverty are very clear in every community. Here are some of the headlines from a local newspaper in my own constituency, the Caerphillly Observer: on 23 May, the headline was, 'Benefit caps hit hundreds in Caerphilly County Borough', and underneath the next headline was the increase in the number of emergency supplies from food banks.

Poverty is now an everyday reality in too many lives, and yet the UK Chancellor only this week continues to be in denial about the link between the policy of austerity and those many suffering in poverty. That was referenced by John Griffiths when he referred to Professor Philip Alston's report earlier on. It seems that the Chancellor rejects the evidence of his own official statistics, but is now apparently admitting that the economy is not working as it should. Well, looking at the food bank figures that John referred to earlier on, it's clearly time that the Chancellor woke up and smelled the coffee, because that is a major problem for the country. 

I recognise that in recent years the Welsh Government has made poverty a cross-cutting issue for the Cabinet, and tackling poverty is therefore a responsibility of every Minister, and that's to be welcomed. I thank the Minister for setting out the Government's positions and policies for seeking to address poverty in his response to the debate. But it does also mean, in my view, that those with a specific passion in the issues around tackling poverty don't always find the focus that is required. And while it is true, as John Griffiths has said, that Welsh Government doesn't hold all the key economic levers required to tackle poverty, not least the UK's responsibility for welfare, some of us do believe that we do require a sharper focus, and that sharper focus would also allow us to prepare for the time when we see the return of a UK Government that is more willing to work in partnership to help tackle poverty.

Many of us recall the record during the period of the last UK Labour Government: children lifted out of poverty—

Are you winding up, please?

—establishing and expanding the Flying Start programme, investing in the life prospects of young people. So, our task is to keep that strong focus on the tackling poverty agenda. It is our challenge and it is the reason why this debate was brought here today. 

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Object. Okay, so we have a vote. 

Voting deferred until voting time.

I intend to move to voting time, unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung. No, okay.