2. What action is the Welsh Government taking to alleviate food poverty in Islwyn? OQ56842

I thank the Member for that question, Llywydd. On 6 September, we announced over £1.9 million-worth of new funding to help tackle food poverty and food insecurity. The Caerphilly Cares About Food project is one of those to benefit from that funding. It will bring communities together—food producers and growing initiatives—to form a network of organisations aimed at tackling food insecurity in the Islwyn area. 

Diolch, First Minister. Last week, it was announced that over £1.9 million of funding is awarded to organisations across Wales, as you say, to help tackle food poverty and address food insecurity within local communities. In Islwyn, in Pantside, where I was born, local volunteers set up in February 2020 the Pantside foodbank, and volunteers, such as Jayne Jeremiah, Wendy Hussey, Adrian Hussey, Cath Davies, Peter and Chyeran Cho, Simone Hockey, Jackie Ann Simette and Viv Smithey, have been supported by the local community, the Co-ops, the Asdas and David Wood bakeries. During this pandemic, these amazing individuals—and I do mean that will all sincerity—and these companies have stepped forward to co-ordinate the community's giving to help those in food poverty. First Minister, what further actions then can the Welsh Government take to aid local campaigners, like the Pantside foodbank volunteers, who are needed more than ever as the UK Tory Government seek to cut £20 a week from universal credit claimants in October? 

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.