Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:51 pm on 6 May 2020.
Can I thank Joyce Watson very much for that question and for bringing us back to what was one of the main focuses of my original statement, which was the inequality impact of coronavirus and the fact that the burden is being felt by some people far more than others and the actions we've taken as a progressive Welsh Government to try to mitigate that?
Now, our £500 payment is based on your place of work, rather than the place where you live. So, Joyce is absolutely right, there are anomalies. There will be people living in England working across the border in Wales who will get the £500 payment, and there are people living in Wales and working in England who won't. The answer to it, as Joyce Watson has said, is simple: make a payment in England as well, and find the funding, as we have found, to do that. I hear Conservative Ministers very regularly on the television telling us how much they value everything that those care workers are doing. What we've tried to do, and it's in a modest way, but it sends an important symbolic message, certainly, is that we've tried to put some of our money where our sentiments have been.
And the same is true of free school meals. We're all rightly worried about the impact of coronavirus on vulnerable families and children who otherwise would have had the support of the school around them, and everything else that we mobilise in Wales to make sure that those families get the support that they need. Our investment in free school meals, the £40 million that we've announced, means that those children can be sure of being fed right through the school holidays, the long school holidays, which we know are such a struggle for so many families. It is more than is being paid elsewhere, but we've always put more in this area. We've always had, throughout this Assembly term, a scheme of feeding children during the long school holiday—a national scheme, paid for through the Welsh Government. We're very proud to be able to continue that, and very grateful to Joyce for drawing attention properly to it this afternoon.