Coronavirus-related Poverty

1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd on 1 December 2020.

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Photo of Mark Isherwood Mark Isherwood Conservative

(Translated)

2. What analysis has the Welsh Government conducted of the impact of coronavirus-related poverty in Wales? OQ55952

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:41, 1 December 2020

Llywydd, we draw on a wide range of research and analysis to understand the impact of coronavirus-related poverty in Wales, including work by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Office for National Statistics labour force survey, the Resolution Foundation, the national survey for Wales, Citizens Advice and the Bevan Foundation.

Photo of Mark Isherwood Mark Isherwood Conservative

Thank you. Well, Citizens Advice Cymru research, 'Facing the cliff edge: Protecting people in Wales from the financial consequences of Covid-19', in May, stated that, 

'The Welsh Government must be proactive in encouraging people to check what benefits or support they are entitled to...This should include benefits and support schemes administered in Wales, such as the Council Tax Reduction Scheme and the Discretionary Assistance Fund.' 

The Bevan Foundation's September report, 'Reducing the impact of Coronavirus on Poverty in Wales', stated that the Welsh Government should undertake a large-scale benefits take-up campaign to ensure people are accessing the benefits they're entitled to, including UK social security benefits, as well as schemes operated by the Welsh Government and local authorities, such as the council tax reduction scheme, free school meals and the discretionary assistance fund, and establish a single point of access for free school meals, pupil development grant and council tax reduction scheme. What specific consequent action has the Welsh Government taken? 

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:42, 1 December 2020

Well, Llywydd, I'm long used to the fact that the Conservative Party in Wales is an irony-free zone, but, even by its normal standards, that supplementary question goes a long way to taking the biscuit. Let me tell the Member what people will find in Wales when they go to have their benefit entitlement checked by the citizens advice bureaux, using the single advice fund that we have provided: what they will find is that £1,000 is being taken away from the poorest families in Wales by the decisions of his Government; that those people who have managed to keep their heads above water, as a result of coronavirus-related poverty in Wales now find that they are going to be asked to bear the burden of the impact on our economy.

I thought last week's comprehensive spending review, of all the many disappointments in it, the worst of all was the Chancellor's refusal to guarantee to those families that the £20 a week that they are getting now will continue to be available to them after the end of March next year. Thirty five per cent of all non-pensioner households in Wales benefit from that—30,000 families in Wales, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. When, as the Member asked me, people go to the services that we provide here in Wales to find out what they will be entitled to, the first thing they will learn is that this Conservative Government has turned their back on them again. 

Photo of Helen Mary Jones Helen Mary Jones Plaid Cymru 1:44, 1 December 2020

I know the First Minister will be aware, from the research that he's mentioned, of the disproportional impact of COVID economically on women, and particularly single-parent families, which tend to be led by women. The £500 payment that's available to people on low incomes who are self-isolating is very welcome and we know it's making a big difference and enabling people to self-isolate. But, of course, that payment, as things stand, is not available to the parents of children who have to isolate or who are sent home because their colleagues are isolating. Speaking to a constituent the other day, she said to me, 'What am I supposed to do? I know I shouldn't take my children to be with my mother, because I know that isn't safe. They're supposed to be staying at home with me, but if I don't go to work, I don't get paid. If I apply for benefits, I'll wait weeks and weeks and weeks before they come through.'

May I ask the First Minister today if he will look again at the eligibility for this payment? We all realise that the Welsh Government really doesn't have a magic money tree, but in terms of priorities, I hope that the First Minister would agree with me that enabling parents, particularly single mothers, to stay at home with their children when the children have to isolate, is something that we should all work towards, because none of us would want to find ourselves in that position where we have to either be able to put bread on the table or to follow the rules.

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:45, 1 December 2020

Llywydd, I thank Helen Mary Jones for that powerful supplementary question, and she will know that her colleague Leanne Wood raised this issue with me, here on the floor of the Senedd, two weeks ago. I had a meeting with officials yesterday, as a result of the points that had been raised with me, and work is being done to see whether, within the financial envelope that is available to us, we can respond to the genuine difficulties that are being reported.

I know Helen Mary Jones will know that if a child has a positive test and has to stay home because test, trace, protect has asked them to, then the parent with care is able to claim the £500. The difficulty arises in the circumstances that were described, where children are sent home from school because another child in the class has been tested positive. Now, sometimes, those children are back in school very rapidly, but if it extends to a full 14 days of self-isolation, that undoubtedly places extra financial burdens, especially in the families that Helen Mary Jones described. So, my officials are working very actively to see whether it is possible to devise a way in which help could be provided to families in those circumstances, and I hope that Ministers will see the result of that work before the end of this week.

Photo of Huw Irranca-Davies Huw Irranca-Davies Labour 1:47, 1 December 2020

First Minister, we know that the financial blow of coronavirus has fallen hardest on those who are already disadvantaged, and this has come on top of a decade of Tory austerity, and that despite the efforts of Welsh and devolved Governments to mitigate this, the impact, cumulatively, of the UK Government's benefits cuts and delays and penalties has punished the lowest paid and the lowest income and vulnerable households.

The Conservatives promised us years ago that austerity would be borne by those with the broadest shoulders, yet they loaded it on those already bowed down under debt and poverty. So, would he agree with me that Boris Johnson's proposals to cut universal credit, cut working tax credit, and freeze public sector pay suggests that we are seeing the same old Tory party attacking the very poorest working families and households in Wales?

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:48, 1 December 2020

Well, what did we hear in the comprehensive spending review last week, Llywydd, but the poorest people in the world will now face a cut in the aid that one of the richest countries in the world provides to them? A deeply disappointing day, as David Cameron, a former Conservative Party Prime Minister, said, that in this country, it will be the poorest people who are penalised when they don't have that lifeline £20 a week. And the public servants, who've been praised from the benches here throughout the coronavirus crisis for the way in which they have been on the front line, or refuse workers or local authority workers or teachers—how many times have I heard opposition party Members here praise them for what they have done, only to find now that their reward is to be to have their incomes frozen once again? And it's not the first time, as Huw Irranca-Davies says. This comes after a decade in which those wages have been held back by successive Conservative Governments, and here we see it again. Scratch them, and you see what you get. They are a party who've always believed that the rich should prosper and the poor must pay the price. And here they're at it again.