7. Member Debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv): Tackling Poverty

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 7:02 pm on 5 June 2019.

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Photo of Dawn Bowden Dawn Bowden Labour 7:02, 5 June 2019

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.