Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:31 pm on 10 December 2019.
Yes. It was a real pleasure to come up to your constituency and listen to a group of very committed people to discuss how we can get together and make sure that all of our policies hit the right people at the right time and how we can access them, and, actually, as a result of that meeting, we've initiated a number of actions across the Government to ensure that our policies line up nicely together, as it was highlighted there that we have very well-intentioned policies that don't always line up as nicely. So, that's one of the work streams that we're taking forward to make sure that people don't fall into the gaps between policies.
So, in terms of how the review is happening, over the next six months, we're reviewing all of the policies across the Welsh Government—it's quite a complex thing to do—to make sure that we know where they are, what they're doing and what they're supposed to do to ensure that we don't have any groups that are left out inadvertently as a result of that and then to talk about what we should do to transform them going forward. So, it's at that point that we'll want to take into account the voices of children and others, but we will be working closely with the commissioners and the human rights commission, Chwarae Teg and a number of other organisations to help us come to those conclusions, and also, of course, beside the Deputy Minister with the gender review, which is a very important part of this piece of work. So, it's about linking them together.
In the meantime, of course, we have a very large number of things that we do to support the health and well-being of low-income families. We have a £6.9 million Healthy Start voucher and nursery milk scheme, providing vouchers for pregnant women, new mothers and children under four from low-income households to get fruit and vegetables, milk and infant formula, plus free multivitamin supplements. I do want to emphasise that, because there are very worrying signs right across the UK of low birth weights in poor women, and we know that low birth weight has a massive effect on you for the rest of your life. So, it's really important to make sure that we get the right services to pregnant women to make sure that a poor diet doesn't affect the birth weight of their child and then its life chances. Isn't it appalling to be saying that, in the fifth richest country in the world, that that's something that we have to look at? Absolutely shameful. So, we are doing our best to make sure that we get those schemes out to the people who need them most.
Sixty thousand people are supported annually through the £126 million housing support grant to help prevent homelessness, because, again, high levels of personal debt and insecure housing drives people into homelessness—hidden homelessness often: not all rough-sleepers, but many people who are sofa surfing, haven't got a secure place to live, or, as Mike Hedges pointed out, are going from private rented to private rented very quickly. So, we have a whole range of legislative programmes designed to give people more security of tenure in their rented home and to make sure that that rented home is fit for purpose. And I will say at this point: to make sure that our good landlords that we have across Wales are recognised and appreciated and valued, I'm looking to put an awards scheme in for those very good landlords so that people can recognise who they are, and the managing agents that work with them, so that we can reward the good landlords and isolate those who don't behave in the right way, and our legislation will help us do that.
We also have an enormous number of other initiatives around a more generous social wage. So, these are cash equivalent services that have the effect of leaving money in the pockets of Welsh citizens. So, some families in Wales are around £2,000 a year better off as a result of things like the council tax reduction schemes, which of course reduces council tax liability for some of our most vulnerable households. It is very important to understand that we are really helping people with how much money they keep in their pocket. Because that's what you want: dignity, isn't it, and command of your own budget. One of the things that really annoys me is when I hear Tory Ministers saying that poor people don't know how to budget. They do know how to budget. My family knew how to budget. If they had to get by on what they got by on, they would know what budgeting is really about.
We're also investing £104 million in the Warm Homes programme between April and March to deliver to another 25,000 homes of people on low incomes or living in deprived areas of Wales better heating. Because, as Mike Hedges has pointed out also, and I think you pointed out in your submission today, but it also came up in the round-table, if you're paying high bills to just keep your home above frost level and you don't have enough to eat and you're struggling to clothe your family, you're not in the best position to make the best of your potential and that means that you're not in the best position to look for work. This regime is actually stopping people being able to access good employment by not allowing them to put their best foot forward. It's completely the opposite of what we should be doing to assist people into well-paid work. So, I'll be delighted to work with you, Vikki, further on the round-table outcomes and with any other Member who wants to hold such a session in their constituency also.