8. What is the Welsh Government doing to help people in the Rhondda to overcome the impact of coronavirus? OQ55680

I thank Leanne Wood, Llywydd, for that.

As we set out in our reconstruction plan, we are committed to a reconstruction that works for the people of Wales, including the Rhondda, by addressing the issues that matter most to them: unemployment, entrenched inequalities, affordable housing, revitalising our town centres and supporting the foundational economy.

Research from Save the Children has shown that more than half of the families in Wales on universal credit, or child tax credit, have had to cut back on essentials, and I'm seeing this at a community level, with demand for the anti-poverty food project that is run from my office, with the help of local councillors and fantastic volunteers. Will you provide more support for struggling businesses and families? I'm sure you support the calls on the UK Government today from the Trades Union Congress, and I'm sure that you will also share my pessimism about those basic demands for workers' rights being met.

So, will you therefore tell us what your Government can do to ensure that, if people are to be made unemployed and lose their income, they can claim some sort of universal basic income, so that they don't lose their income if they do lose their livelihood? Because we all know that when people lose their incomes there are a lot of other problems that can follow on from that. So, what can you do to introduce a universal basic income to overcome the problems that we know that the UK Government are not going to solve?

Llywydd, while I myself have long seen the attractions of a universal basic income, it's simply not an idea that is capable of being introduced unilaterally in Wales, just as the Member's sister party in Scotland has not been able to introduce a universal basic income in Scotland either. I am interested to see whether it is possible to run some experimental pilots here in Wales, because I think the idea is definitely one that has merit and ought to be explored in that way. 

I absolutely agree the calls today through the TUC, both that the £20 additional to universal credit that has been a feature of the pandemic ought to be continued beyond April of next year—that seems absolutely fundamental. And we use our Welsh Government budgets to supplement the social wage of families by paying through the public purse for things that they themselves would have to pay for otherwise. And I know that Leanne Wood will have welcomed the additional £11 million that the Welsh Government has found to continue free school meals during school holiday periods for the rest of this Senedd term as a practical example of what we can do with the powers that we have already to make life for those families to which she referred a little easier than would otherwise be the case. 

I thank the First Minister.