Tackling Poverty

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:28 pm on 11 June 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:28, 11 June 2019

Well, thank you to Dawn Bowden for pointing to those two developments of this week. The absolutely astonishing suggestions by a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party that, eight years into austerity, those who need the help the most are those who have the most to begin with. It's absolutely disgraceful, when you think of the impacts that there have been on the poorest families here in Wales, that the Secretary of State for Wales should announce that he is prepared to support somebody who not only in relation to his policies on Brexit, which the Secretary of State knows perfectly well, will be devastating here in Wales, but who is also, apparently, there to speak up for Wales at the UK level, with everything that we know in relation to the impact of those cuts here in Wales—that he is prepared to support a candidate who would shovel money out of the pockets of those people who have the least into the pockets of those who have the most. And when it comes to universal benefits, I absolutely want to agree with what the Member said about the television licence. The television licence has been a universal benefit. It goes to every older person aged over 75. Nobody has to apply. Nobody has to be threatened with imprisonment because they don't pay it. Nobody later on in life has to wonder about whether this bill has to be added to everything else they have to pay out of a fixed income. Those families have enjoyed that benefit since the last Labour Government was in charge of these matters at the UK level, and it's a pretty bad day for those families to find themselves in a position where, in future, not only will many of them get no help at all, but even those who are entitled to help will not get that help automatically. They will be forced to deal with a system that is deeply off-putting for many of them. Many of them will lose out. We know that that's what happens with means-tested benefits, and that's why Dawn Bowden is so right to point to the absolute advantages that providing benefits, wherever that's possible, on a universal basis, provide to claimants.