We move to item 8, which is a debate on the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee report, 'Benefits in Wales: options for better delivery', and I call on the Chair of the committee to move the motion—John Griffiths.

Motion NDM7373 John Griffiths

To propose that the Senedd:

Notes the report of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee, 'Benefits in Wales: options for better delivery', which was laid in the Table Office on 24 October 2019.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm pleased to open today's debate on the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee report on benefits in Wales. We published a report in October 2019, when the world was a very different place. While the pandemic has played a significant role in delaying this debate, it is not the only reason for that delay. Initially, the Welsh Government did not respond to seven of our recommendations, as it was awaiting analysis from the Wales Centre for Public Policy. When this work was completed in January 2020, the Government committed to responding to our outstanding recommendations by Easter. The pandemic then delayed the final response, which we received in May.

Having waited so long for a substantive response to the recommendations, it was therefore disappointing that the Welsh Government did not provide the detailed response we expected. They stated that, against the background of COVID and the uncertainty around the emergency changes to the benefits system, now is not the time to consider long-term changes to social security. Yet, the pandemic has laid bare the precarious nature of too many people's finances—a precariousness that is not through any fault of their own but because they simply do not earn enough money to cover basic outgoings. The traditional route out of poverty—work—has stalled. Before the pandemic, over half the people living in poverty were in households where at least one person was in work. So, I ask the Welsh Government: if not today, when will they take a comprehensive look and consider seeking the necessary powers so that Wales has control over those benefits that are best delivered and set here?

We can already learn much from the Scottish experience. Clearly, it would not be easy and would come with risks, but as some of the stakeholders told us, sticking with the current status quo is also a considerable risk. We believe that the advantages of devolving some benefits are potentially so significant and could do so much to help support people in Wales out of poverty that it is worth being bold and seeking the relevant powers. It is also worth highlighting that devolution will take time and we should avoid any further delays in starting this journey.

Moving on to the impact of the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in the numbers of people claiming benefits in Wales since the start of the lockdown. Between March and July, there was a 71 per cent increase in people in Wales receiving universal credit, and the Welsh Government's discretionary assistance fund has paid out over 52,000 coronavirus emergency payments since March. I am pleased that the Welsh Government has taken a more flexible approach to DAF applications, which have enabled more people to access those emergency funds.

During our work looking at the impact of the pandemic, we've heard about the need for further changes that better support the most affected people in Wales. The recommendations we made in this report nearly a year ago have become even more important now. Our recommendations looked at both those changes that could be made within the current settlement as well as where further devolution may be required. As I have mentioned, it is disappointing that the Welsh Government has never really fully engaged with those later recommendations in our report.

But I will now move on to changes that could be made within the current settlement. In relation to recommendations 1 through to 9, there has been more positive progress. However, there are some areas that I would like to seek further clarity on, and I will focus on those areas now. In recommendation 1, we call for the establishment of a coherent and integrated Welsh benefits system that encompasses all the means-tested benefits the Welsh Government is responsible for. I am pleased this recommendation was accepted. In their response, the Welsh Government highlighted their cross-Government review of programmes and services for children, young people and families living in poverty. In the Government's latest response, they state the review is nearly complete. Can the Deputy Minister outline when she expects this review to be published, and can she also give us a flavour of how this will help improve the coherence and integration of Welsh Government benefits?

Recommendation 3—call for the discretionary assistance fund to be available during the five-week wait for a universal credit payment and call for the criteria and application process to make this explicit. I am pleased that this recommendation has been implemented, but, as we noted in our report on COVID and equalities, published over the summer, we remain concerned that not everybody who may be eligible for that is aware they can apply. Concerns about awareness have been raised since 2015. In our COVID report, we recommended a rebranding of the discretionary assistance fund, and I look forward to the Government's response to that report in the coming week.

In the Government's response to this report, the Deputy Minister highlights that, along with the First Minister, she has written to the UK Government about the universal credit five-week wait, calling for advances that are currently available as repayable loans to be made into non-repayable grants. Can the Deputy Minister update us on whether there has been any response from the UK Government on what further actions may be taken?

One of the key themes we heard, both in this work and our subsequent work on COVID-19, was that there are too many people who are not claiming support they are eligible for. We therefore recommended action to improve take-up of all benefits, both devolved and non-devolved. We call for, at the very least, a wide-ranging and extensive public awareness campaign.

The Welsh Government has emphasised the importance of the single advice fund in providing benefits advice and increasing take-up. They also highlight the work they've been doing with the Department for Work and Pensions on the underclaiming of benefits for older people. We welcome this, but we still believe that more action is essential. The need for such a campaign has actually increased since we first reported. We repeated this recommendation in our COVID report. The Bevan Foundation also called for such a campaign in their recent report on COVID and poverty. Does the Deputy Minister now accept these calls and will she commit to such an awareness-raising campaign?

Before I close, I would also ask for an update from the Deputy Minister on the discussions with the UK Government to strengthen the Welsh voice in decisions on non-devolved benefits. Dirprwy Lywydd, I now look forward to hearing contributions from across the Senedd and the Deputy Minister's response. Diolch yn fawr.

Well, throughout our inquiry, I emphasised that our consideration of options for better delivery of benefits in Wales must focus on whether this would intrinsically benefit people in Wales, rather than on opinions of the transient policies of changing Governments. Governments in London and Cardiff come and go, and the policy agenda both between and within parties in both will change over time. As such, our focus must be on whether delivering things at a devolved level in perpetuity would, by itself, better meet Welsh needs and address the impact on devolved policy areas, rather than reflect the politics around current UK and Welsh Government policies.

As our report states,

'devolution does not improve things automatically, a point raised by most stakeholders including Oxfam Cymru, the Bevan Foundation, academics from Bangor University and the Deputy Minister.'

As we also noted, 

'the potential prize of delivering services that better suit Welsh specific needs' must be balanced against the possibility of breaking the social union across the UK that underpins the principle that all UK citizens have an equal claim to the welfare state and that benefits and burdens depend on need and not geography.

As the Chartered Institute of Housing told us, the current model

'which spreads social security spending over a larger demographic base is one that at present is advantageous to Wales,  where, quote,

'Due to a higher level of dependency on benefits in Wales, there is "effectively" a transfer of income from England to Wales.'

As they also said, just assuming that it's going to be better just because you're closer to it—I don't think that necessarily follows.

The Bevan Foundation highlighted the need for distinction between those benefits that are arguably part of the social contract, e.g. benefits that are based on national insurance contributions, and those that are variable top-up payments designed to support people in specific circumstances, e.g. to manage higher housing costs. They state that poverty could be reduced if the existing devolved schemes, including the discretionary assistance fund and council tax reduction scheme, were pulled together into a coherent, effective and fair Welsh benefits system.

In Scotland, the importance of involving people with lived experience in the design of the new social security system was emphasised to us, as was the need to counterbalance the savings generated by reduced appeals against the cost of increased take-up. In terms of UK benefit administration, we heard that there were fewer universal credit sanctions than ever before. We heard that although Scottish Conservative colleagues have supported the devolution of some social security powers, accounting for around 16 per cent of welfare spending in Scotland, there's still an anticipated £1 billion funding black hole despite the Scottish Government having more financial headroom, and the decision makers still need to make hard decisions at a devolved level. We're also told that the scale of the DWP meant that Scottish devolution will not work without its effective input.

As our report states, we're concerned that the current assessment processes do not always take best account of the specific needs or challenges faced by people with some conditions, an issue I've been raising repeatedly with the DWP and Capita on constituent cases. Hence the need to embed the lived experience of people into the design, implementation and evaluation of the benefits system. Contrary to the report's statement that the Scottish approach, where the private sector has been removed from the assessment process, requires further exploration, the focus should therefore be on the assessment process rather than who delivers it. Whether assessments are conducted by public, private or third sector, they will fail unless people with lived experience are involved in their design, delivery and monitoring.

I welcome the Welsh Government's acceptance of our recommendations that it establish a coherent and integrated Welsh benefits system for all the means-tested benefits for which it is responsible, co-produced with people who claim these benefits and the wider Welsh public, and that it use the Oxfam sustainable livelihoods approach toolkit, recognising that all people have abilities and assets that can be developed to help them improve their lives. We now need words turned into real action so that at last things are done with people rather than to them.

The Welsh Government states that it is finalising actions to take forward following its review of its existing programmes and services, and building on action already undertaken in response to the current crisis. However, developing a set of principles and values on which a Welsh benefits system will be based and tackling poverty more widely will only succeed with citizen involvement at its core. Diolch.

I want to begin by commending this report to the Senedd and congratulating the committee. I would argue that this is an example of our Senedd, our Parliament, at its best: detailed evidence collected, carefully considered, and strong, well thought through, detailed recommendations. As a Parliament and as a nation, we should be grateful to the committee for its work.

Unfortunately, the Government response is less inspiring—too much 'we're doing it already', too much 'accept in principle', which we all know basically means 'we know that you're right but we're not going to do it', and, for recommendations 10 to 17, no response at all pending research, despite the research that the committee had already done. As John Griffiths has already said, I hope the Minister will be able to give a more positive response in her contribution to this debate, particularly in the light of what we've learnt about poverty through the COVID crisis.

I will address my remarks to these recommendations. The committee has carefully looked at and made a very powerful case for the devolution of various aspects of the benefits system, and there's no need for me to rehearse those; I want to speak to the overall principle. Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm sure that we can all agree that poverty is a scourge on our nation. Personally, I am deeply saddened and angered by the fact that I live in a nation where a third of our children are poor. It's a national disgrace. And I hope we can all agree that the long-term solution is for us to build an economy where work pays, where good-quality employment is available to all, and where prosperity is shared across Wales. But, in the short term, there will be many individuals and families who will need benefits to get by, and this position will only worsen in the aftermath of the COVID crisis, as we've already heard. 

The current benefits system—and I'm focusing here on those benefits that are not devolved, but it's arguably true of the Welsh benefits system too—is complex, it's stigmatising, and it does not provide individuals and families with sufficient income for a decent life. If we are serious about lifting people out of poverty, we need to use the benefits system to help us do it. And I don't believe for one minute, and I suspect Members on the Government benches here don't either, that the current Conservative Government in Westminster, albeit that they come and go, can be trusted to do that. My constituents are certainly not experiencing the kind of social solidarity and redistribution of which Mark Isherwood speaks. 

So, I remain at a loss as to why the Government is not seeking powers over these benefits as a matter of urgency. I can understand some fiscal concerns, that's only responsible, but Ministers will be aware, for example, of the research done by the Wales Governance Centre that found no evidence that devolving some power over benefits to Wales, as has already been done to Scotland, would be fiscally unsustainable. Indeed, it showed that, depending on the model used, the Welsh Treasury could stand to benefit considerably from the devolution of welfare powers.

Dirprwy Lywydd, partly as a response to COVID, new and innovative ideas are circulating in Wales about how we might lift people out of poverty. There are, for example, many in this Chamber who would advocate trialling a universal basic income. My party is advocating a Welsh child payment to end absolute poverty for children in Wales. But these ideas can only work properly, they can only go beyond trial, if the power over the benefits system lies here. The committee has made a powerful, well-evidenced as well as passionate case, and we've heard this again in John Griffiths's speech today. I urge the Government to act on that now. As John Griffiths has said, it will take time. If we began the process to seek the devolution of these benefits, it would take time for them to come. Our poorest fellow citizens need our Government, as John said, to be bold. 

It's a pleasure to follow on from the last speaker and also from my Chair of the committee, John Griffiths. I stand simply to support all the points that have been made in terms of the report that we brought forward and the recommendations, because I think the report is actually very balanced. It isn't strident or ideological or fixated on a certain end point. It listened very carefully to the evidence that came in front of us. It very much reflects the cross-party nature of that committee and different political and personal perspectives of those who sat on that committee—I have to say, very different personal and political perspectives of those who sat on the committee. It doesn't, actually, seek wholesale devolution of all benefits, and certainly not in one fell swoop, either. It actually looks for practical ways in which significant but targeted elements of benefits could be devolved, as well as significantly greater administrative devolution of benefits. And why? With the sole purpose of improving the lot of people in Wales.

And, do you know, from a personal perspective, I've said repeatedly in this Chamber, from my brand of socialism, I want to see the benefits system supporting people in Swansea and Southport and Stockport and everywhere else equally, and we have to recognise—and I depart from the committee in a sense, here; my perspective is that, for the last 10 years, we've had a punitive regime. I've seen the evidence of it in my own constituency. For me, that is unarguable. But we couldn't equally say that some future Government in Wales, heaven help us, Mary, and John on the monitor there, would not have a benign approach to the benefits system and social security—a future Government in Wales might do it, but at least we'd have the mechanisms here and closer to the people that we could argue, 'Why are you doing what you're doing?' as opposed to some distant Whitehall Ministers and Whitehall mandarins who say, 'This is the way it's going to be, and you can tinker around the edges but that's your lot.' So, I would argue to the Minister that it's a practical approach that is set out within this, recognising the evidence we consistently heard time after time. People came in front of us as a committee and didn't argue, actually, for wholesale devolution, didn't argue from an ideological base; they were people who were confronted with the hard reality of the people that they try to support, who were in work as well as out of work receiving benefits, and how we could better put a system in place in Wales that would actually be to their good.

In May 2020, the Deputy Minister for Housing and Local Government in front of us here, Hannah, told the committee that, 'Because of the uncertain times of the pandemic, now does not appear to be the best time, both in terms of available resource and availability of evidence, to consider fully long-term changes to social security.' I have some sympathy with that on the pandemic in front of us and the resources, I do; I don't have sympathy with the element that talks about the evidence, because we did a lot of work on that committee that I think would help the Government do whatever they need to finesse the evidence, and actually just go on with it. I don't, by the way, underestimate what we'll get back from the UK Government on this, but we should ask. We should get a position and then put it there, and in the next Senedd come back and put that position again until we get a Government in London that will listen.

The Minister also said that she would revisit this important issue again when the Welsh Government has been able to fully reconsider any changes that have been made to the UK social security system and how the UK Government social security system has been able to meet the challenges in Wales of the global crisis, and had the opportunity to review any evidence for how the crisis has been met by the different models operating for devolved social security arrangements in other devolved nations. I recognise the grass was growing longer and longer as I went through that, and that would be my ask of the Minister in support of the Chair and other members of the committee who came to very clear recommendations and conclusions on this. There are resource constraints at the moment without a doubt, and it wasn't simply COVID, but what the EU withdrawal process has been doing to our civil service, and so on; I get that. But we really need to move ahead with this now, and as I say once again in closing, not for ideological reasons but purely for practical measures that will improve the lot of my constituents and people across Wales, we should be making these decisions closer to home, closer to home in Wales. 

I'm glad we're having this debate today and I would like to offer my own congratulations to the Chair, to the committee and clerking team for the work they did in undertaking this inquiry; it was before I was a member of the committee.

A civilised society should be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable citizens. There shouldn't be a stigma around receiving benefits and no-one should be made to feel lacking for needing a helping hand. Compassion should be built into the system. Sadly, that is often so far from the truth. For a number of years, I worked for Citizens Advice Cymru and I'm grateful to them for the notes that they sent to a number of us in anticipation of today's debate, as well as the Bevan Foundation.

When I worked for Citizens Advice, I saw first-hand how badly needed a Welsh benefits system is. Universal credit is a system that is, well, at least it seems at times designed to push people into further debt. Delays in receiving the benefit mean too many people have to take out emergency expensive loans to get by that they're forever afterwards trying to pay back. The system we have is overly complicated, the eligibility for benefits isn't consistent, and people are expected to find out for themselves what they're eligible for, rather than getting those benefits automatically. 

There are gaps in provision and, as the Bevan Foundation has pointed out, discretionary schemes that were meant to be a last resort are often relied on in the longer term to keep families going. If we were talking about businesses, we wouldn't think that sounded sustainable, so why should families or individuals be expected to live in that perilous state?

As a minimum, we need the administration of welfare to be devolved, I think, to the Senedd so that we can create a system that works for Wales, that meets the challenges of our society and mitigates the worst effects of cuts when they come from Westminster. We could ensure that benefits reach the people who need them, that they use consistent criteria for eligibility, that they're easy to access and that they help to improve people's lives. Benefits shouldn't trap people in further debt or in poverty. They shouldn't just be enough to scrape by. I’ll say it again: there should be no stigma in claiming benefits. All of us should be guided by the ambition to improve the lives of the people we represent, of all those who call Wales their home.

And finally, Dirprwy Lywydd, I'd argue that devolving the benefit system would allow us to help close some loopholes that currently allow certain people to fall between stools, if I can mix my metaphors. Over lockdown I was contacted by a young constituent who had to foot the costs of a close family member's funeral. Because she was a student, she wasn't able to access the hardship funds that are meant to help people with these costs. Computer said 'no'. My constituent has mounted a campaign, she's launched a petition, she's had coverage in national newspapers, and I really commend her for that, all to try to ensure that no-one else has to face financial hardship as well as crippling grief in this deeply unfair situation. Her determination is to help other people and I hope we can learn a lesson from her experience and that we can use this as a further reason to demand the devolution of the benefits system. Only when we have a system that is controlled by our own Government, designed for the needs of our citizens, will we have the levers to ensure that no-one else has to go through what she went through.

I commend the report and I look forward to when the recommendations become a reality.

Thank you. Can I now call on the Deputy Minister for Housing and Local Government, Hannah Blythyn?

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'd like to start by thanking Members, both of the committee and of the wider Senedd, for their contributions, and I do welcome the opportunity to finally be able to respond to this debate and to the committee inquiry report today.

As you've heard here today during the debate, each of us here knows all too well how the COVID-19 pandemic has led to difficult times for our communities and for our country. We've worked hard as a Government to step in and provide support where we can, particularly to the most vulnerable individuals and families.

We saw early on in the pandemic the UK Government's Department for Work and Pensions making some changes to the financial support on offer and the way in which it was delivered. Although these changes were welcome, other potentially more critical interventions were met with what I can say is intransigence. And this is despite the repeated representations, not just of politicians and of this Welsh Government and the First Minister, but non-governmental organisations, citizens and stakeholders from across the country. The reintroduction of the sanction system and the utter refusal to waive the five-week wait for the first payment of universal credit are examples of decisions that have pushed vulnerable people further into financial hardship. Between mid March and mid July there were 120,000 new claimants of universal credit in Wales. These are people who need urgent support and a social security safety net to be there, not red tape.

Here in Wales, we acted quickly to ensure that support was in place. From 1 May we implemented significant changes to the discretionary assistance fund, which provides emergency payments to those facing the most extreme financial hardship. An additional £8.9 million was added to the fund to support an increase in applications from people affected, and the eligibility criteria was overhauled to include those most severely affected by COVID-19. This included people waiting for their first universal credit payment and those who were finding it difficult to make ends meet because of the financial pressure brought about by the pandemic. The number of payments made is now running at three time the levels pre lockdown. Since the beginning of the pandemic, this fund has supported over 64,000 awards and seen £3.9 million of emergency assistance payments made to people who were identified in the most dire situations because of COVID-19. On 4 August I announced an extension of the DAF rule relaxation up until 31 March 2021. This will mean that people facing hardship can continue to make five rather than three claims in a 12-month period, and the removal of the 28-day limit between claims will continue.

Throughout this pandemic, we've continued to build on the cross-Government support for vulnerable individuals and families through the delivery of a more generous social wage. This includes cash-equivalent services that enable Welsh citizens to keep much needed money in their pockets. An additional £40 million-worth of funding for free school meals was made available to help families feed their children while schools were closed, and we've allocated an additional £2.85 million for local authorities in Wales to meet increases in applications for the council tax reduction scheme.

We've also supported food charities and community food organisations to meet the unprecedented demand for access to emergency food from the people affected by the crisis. Funding of more than £1 million has been approved from our voluntary services emergency fund grant scheme to support food distribution, and in May I agreed funding in excess of £98,000 to be allocated to FareShare Cymru to develop a suitable mechanism for addressing food insecurity in north Wales through the redistribution of surplus food. More people than ever have had to turn to food banks and we've done a great deal to ensure those food banks themselves do not go without.

When we look at the impact of the pandemic on levels of poverty, including child poverty, we know it is likely to be substantial. It is against this backdrop that we have taken steps forward to maximise incomes and help reduce essential living costs for low-income households. Much of these actions have been informed by the committee's inquiry, and I would like to thank the committee for not just their considerable work in this area, but their considered work.

We've already started to work on improving the take-up of benefits and we're working with Oxfam Cymru to embed their sustainable livelihood approach into our DAF programme initially before we look to progress it into other Welsh benefit support programmes. I myself was hoping to participate in person in a practical workshop session, but that shifted online and I was pleased to take part in it with Oxfam Cymru on the sustainable livelihood approach to see the range of tools available first-hand. Oxfam Cymru have now kindly agreed to deliver more of these awareness sessions to our DAF approved partners during this month.

All of this work is based on the clear understanding that it's critical that all those eligible for support are aware of and are accessing the full range of entitlements available to them. The Chair of the committee, in his opening, talked about the need for awareness raising as one of the recommendations and to reinforce this approach we are investing £800,000 in the provision of income maximisation initiatives. We will carry out a communications campaign to coincide with changes to the job retention scheme in October, working with the third sector and local authorities to raise public awareness of existing benefits, services and programmes that mitigate or alleviate income poverty, and I'm sure that Members of this Senedd will be keen to help promote awareness of that alongside us.

Online training for front-line workers to enable them to provide income maximisation support to families living in poverty will be carried out between November 2020 and April 2021. Alongside this, we will work extensively with a range of partners to ensure advice services reach deep into communities and are delivered from places where people most in need go to.

Deputy Llywydd, our local authorities have responded exceptionally during this crisis to ensure support is provided for low-income families. We will continue to support them to provide local solutions, reviewing together how we can streamline the way that Welsh benefits are administered and make them more accessible.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I'd like to touch on some of the comments from the Chair in expressing his disappointment in terms of the response to recommendations 10 to 17. Whilst I can understand that he may feel that—[Inaudible.]—I really do want to reiterate the way in which many within Welsh Government, not myself, not Ministers, have gone above and beyond during this crisis to make sure we are able to respond and support effectively people who need the help right there. I would like to make clear that we wholeheartedly recognise as a Government that devolving certain powers relating to elements of social security could provide us with a wider range of tools to tackle poverty, which is why we asked the Wales Centre for Public Policy to undertake the work in this area in the first place and we will continue to look at evidence and also include the evidence of this committee in our work.

I hope Members will appreciate that, in the short term, our focus must be on using our existing powers to our best—and yes, in some cases, better—ability to ensure we support those people most in need in the here and now. That is what we'll continue to do and that's what we will keep demanding from others. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you very much. Can I now call on John Griffiths to reply to the debate?

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'd like to thank everybody for their contributions. I think there was a great deal of common ground in what we heard in the Chamber and remotely today. Mark Isherwood mentioned the importance of lived experience and I don't think there's any Member who would not agree with that. It is absolutely crucial; it's becoming increasingly common as a feature in the way that we develop and shape services, and that certainly should be applied more to the benefits system. Mark also mentioned the importance of the assessment process, whoever's doing it, as I think Mark put it, but I think surely the point is that in terms of the ability of Welsh Government and the Senedd to shape what happens in Wales, it would be very good for us to be able to shape that assessment process and make sure that it really did reflect the lived experience of people here in Wales. If we have little control over it, then obviously there's not a lot we can do apart from writing to UK Government and making recommendations that Welsh Government seeks to pressurise UK Government in terms of what isn't currently devolved, and I'm sure many of us would like to do a lot more than that.

I very much welcome what Helen Mary said, particularly in terms of the strong and principled position behind devolution of benefits, and the ability it would give us to look at some innovative ways forward, such as the universal basic income, which I know is very interesting to very many people, and offers all sorts of possibilities.

Huw Irranca-Davies, I think, was very strongly saying that we need the power here in Wales to get the system that would really deliver for our communities, and the closer it is—the benefits system—to Wales, then obviously, the more ability we have to do that, and obviously, that's the essential case, and I think Huw put it very forcibly and effectively.

Delyth Jewell mentioned stigma, which is such an issue, isn't it? And we know from Citizens Advice—that I know Delyth mentioned her previous involvement with—that with recent work that they've done, it shows that that is a continuing problem, it's one of the real barriers in terms of getting people to claim what they're entitled to, and there's also a lack of awareness in terms of what people may be eligible for. So, we really do need that campaign to raise awareness and to increase take-up, and that's been a strong call from so many people for so long. We have seen developments that have helped raise awareness and increase take-up, but obviously, there is still much to do, and the organisations working on the ground continue to highlight that.

In terms of what the Minister had to say, I think we do all recognise, of course, that a great deal of hard work has gone on through the pandemic, and that's been so crucial and so welcome, and none of us would not want to fully recognise that. I think one thing it does show—and I think the Bevan Foundation has been keen again to highlight this—is that there is a lot that Welsh Government and local authorities already do in terms of what we would broadly call benefits—some of them cash, and some of them in lieu of cash—in Wales. We've shown that through the pandemic, Welsh Government and local authorities can deliver effectively, and I think that should really give us greater confidence that we could do likewise with more devolution and more power over benefits here in Wales.

There are some problems, and I know that the Bevan Foundation, for example, feels that more could be done in Wales to have a coherent, comprehensive approach, so that there were common eligibility requirements for different benefits. You could have one form for a number, rather than separate forms, and they feel that some of this work could be done between Welsh Government and local authorities now to help over the course of what's likely to be a very difficult winter, and that would be very important work, paving the way for a more devolved benefits system in the longer run.

But I very much welcome what the Minister had to say about continuing to look at this further devolution and recognising the case, because I think in a nutshell, many of us as Members of the Senedd would know from our week in, week out constituency surgeries just how pernicious many of the effects of the UK benefits system are and just how much improvement is necessary and could quite easily in some cases be achieved through better administration and more unified administration, leaving aside the matter of greater funding.

So, I think in closing, Dirprwy Llywydd, there's much work yet to be done on this, but there's a great deal of common ground in terms of the views across the Chamber, and I think that should be very encouraging for Welsh Government, together with the work that they've effectively done along with local authorities through the summer in delivering important benefits. We can and should do more, and I hope very much Welsh Government moves forward on that basis. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you. The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? No. Therefore in accordance with Standing Order 12.36, the committee report is noted.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.