Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:26 pm on 10 December 2019.
Thank you for those points, Mike. It's well worth pointing out that the level of child poverty across the UK has risen. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's 2018 report on child poverty, child poverty has been rising since 2011-12, which is an interesting correlation with the inception of a Government, and a total of 4.1 million children now live in relative income poverty—a rise of 500,000 in the last five years. So, I think it is clear that there are driving policies causing this.
Here in Wales we have a number of things that we're doing to tackle the inequalities that poverty brings. So, for example, since 2012 more than £475 million has been made available through the pupil development grant to support children and young people to reach their full potential. The school holiday enrichment programme has provided opportunities for children aged seven to 11 years from disadvantaged areas to be more active and, more importantly, as Mike points out, to eat healthily through the school holidays, develop friendships and make use of local school facilities during the summer holidays.
We are certainly looking at how we can extend the school holiday enrichment programme across Wales, because I absolutely accept Mike Hedges's point that a child that is hungry is not a child that's reaching its full potential. We're also supporting people into training and work, and our £12 million per annum Communities for Work Plus programme has supported a further 2,227 individuals into employment. But it's not just employment, is it? It has to be good employment. It has to be secure employment. It has to be employment that's not on a low guaranteed hour or, worse still, zero-hours contract. And for that we need different employment legislation at UK level. We need to make sure that people cannot be exploited and that, instead of regarding the people who are being supported by universal credit as the problem, we regard the businesses that don't pay them adequately as the problem, and we have a taxation system that properly reflects that. And to do that, we need a proper progressive Labour Government in power.