Okay. I voted with Lynne Neagle in the debate she referred to. I fully endorse her call and would ask you to reconsider the specific point that she raised where the Children’s Commissioner for Wales in March called on the Welsh Government for a new child poverty delivery plan.

Even before the financial crash, Wales had the highest child poverty levels in the UK: 29 per cent in 2007, 32 per cent in 2008—even before the crash. In 2012, 'Child Poverty Snapshots' from Save the Children said that Wales has the highest poverty and severe child poverty rates of any nation in the UK. In May, the End Child Poverty Network reported that Wales was the only UK nation to see a rise in child poverty last year.

Well, this is actually National Co-production Week, as the Carnegie Trust reminded some of us yesterday. How, therefore, do you respond to the statement in Children in Wales's 'Child and Family Poverty in Wales: Results from the Child and Family Survey 2018'? It asked respondents, people in our communities, what they thought the Welsh Government should be doing to reduce child and family poverty, and the first comment quoted was to

'Invest in local communities—engage with local people and work with bottom up approaches to regeneration programmes'. 

Despite the rhetoric, despite the billions spent, this hasn't happened, isn't happening, and must happen within the strategy if we're going to finally tackle this outrage.