I certainly agree with the spirit of the point you're making, that we should definitely hold Westminster to account and continue to do that very vociferously. But I suppose the logic of my case is that we have to ask ourselves what we can do here now, because the salvation will not come, I think, likely any time soon from Westminster. Now, in essence, we've had two elements of an anti-poverty approach in Wales. One of them has focused on intervening directly in the economy, so lowering the number of families in workless households, enabling more women to enter the workforce, for example, raising wage levels for those in work that work in the foundational economy. The second type of policy, then, is the provision of services directly targeted at children in poverty, things like the pupil deprivation grant, many of the programmes that, presumably, the Government is referring to in its amendment, referring to the £1 billion spent—I presume annually—mentioned in its child poverty progress report in December. 

The problem with the former, the challenge with the former approach of directly intervening in the economy, is that that type of deep structural change takes time to bear fruit. And, then, while you're waiting for that structural change to happen, of course, you have an entire generation of children that then have grown up with the problems of poverty. It's important, it's absolutely imperative, but it's not going to provide that immediate relief. 

The problem with the latter is, by definition almost, it's intended to be ameliorating. So, it's dealing with the effects, the consequences, the symptoms of poverty, not the root causes. And this leads us to the discussion of whether we need a new approach, which, essentially, in the form of the Welsh child payment, would involve a cash transfer directly payable to low-income families themselves. Now, there are, obviously, legitimate questions around the detail, some of which we can get into later—the level of the payment, who would qualify, the powers or the agreements with the UK Government that we would need in order to make this as effective as possible. But these are second order questions, in essence. The key first question is: do we agree in principle that this would be a positive policy and it could have a higher impact than some of the alternative approaches that I referred to earlier? 

Now, it's not an original idea. It's based on the Scottish child payment that will be introduced later this year of £10 to low-income families. That started as an idea actually from the coalition of anti-poverty groups in Scotland, with the Give Me Five campaign to top up child benefit by £5 a week. The modelling around that suggested that that even would lift 30,000 children out of poverty in Scotland. That shows, actually, that relatively small amounts—small amounts to us maybe—but relatively small amounts of money can have huge impacts when we're talking about families that are living on the breadline. From this idea then emerged the idea of a Scottish child payment that is set at a higher rate but is not automatic, so it would have to be applied for. It's also estimated that that will have a similar effect in terms of 30,000 children brought out of poverty. 

The cost of the policy is around £180 million—£180 million out of Scottish Government budget of over £40 billion. Well, you know, if this is a priority, and child poverty clearly is for the Scottish Government, then they'd made the assessment that that is a price worth paying, given the impact that it's going to have in those numbers.

In terms of the evidence, the academic evidence is very, very strong. Money makes a difference to children's long-term outcomes. Poorer children have worse life outcomes in terms of their health, their educational achievement, their future employment and their own income prospects. It becomes that intergenerational cycle of disadvantage, and poverty increases stress and anxiety levels, parents are less able to invest in the goods and services that children need for their own development. And the—[Interruption.] Yes, I'll give way.