Food Poverty

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 14 September 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:41, 14 September 2021

Well, Llywydd, Rhianon Passmore makes a very important point at the very end of her supplementary question. Those fantastic volunteers at the St Peter's Church in the Pantside foodbank—a remarkable foodbank, by the way, Llywydd, because it operates with no referrals, no vouchers, no appointments; people can simply turn up and know that they will be helped—and it is a very sad fact indeed that, as from the removal of that £20 a week, those volunteers, and others like them right across Wales, will find themselves having to respond to the needs of even more families, working families, here in Wales, Llywydd. There are 97,000 families in Wales who are working and receiving universal credit. Nearly 300,000 families who will be worse off every single week, forced, as the Trussell Trust said last week, to choose again between heating, eating or being able to afford to travel to work. It is deliberate, it is calculated and it is callous. It is a decision that this UK Government should, even now, reconsider so that those families and those volunteers right throughout Wales can focus their efforts on the help that is already needed in our communities, without adding thousands more people who will struggle every week to make ends meet.