What's £20 a week? It's not that much, surely? That's what some of the billionaires in Westminster have implied, but £20 adds up to £1,040 a year: a huge amount for families for whom the pandemic is far from over. And this cut, as we've heard, will happen a week after the furlough scheme is likely to end and at a time when living costs are set to rise. We've heard the term a number of times already, 'a perfect storm', well, it's a perfect storm when the roof has blown off. And Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm using terms like this, 'pandemic', 'furlough': they should be anchor points that remind us that we are not living in normal times; we're living in a time of global crisis and that global crisis has every day catastrophic effects on people living in poverty—'catastrophic' in its true sense: sudden changes, things being turned upside down.

And in the midst of this crisis, when all the pieces of people's lives are being held in this precarious balance, a vital piece is taken away, an uplift that was meant to keep people in balance gets knocked out, and like a Jenga tower, like a pack of cards, it can all come tumbling down, because that is the lie, isn't it, at the heart of our benefit system. It's not about ending poverty; it's about keeping things in an impossible balance: a system that pushes families into debt before they get their first payment, ensuring they're behind before they start, forcing them to barely get by, forever struggle, never feel comfortable or at ease, holding up a house of paper and cards.

More than 61,000 families in south-east Wales will be affected by this cut. In Merthyr, Torfaen and Newport East, more than a quarter of all families will be affected. Sixty-one thousand families. Let's not dismiss that statistic—61,290 families, to be precise, will lose money that is helping them to live, and anyone who says that people receiving universal credit can afford to lose this money must have a fundamental misunderstanding of how poverty works. Twenty pounds a week can be the difference that means that children have full bellies, that means that families can keep the heating on, but it also means that children can have books, pocket money, and that they're able to go on school trips. Because those things shouldn't be luxuries, they shouldn't just be for the well-off children; they should be normal. The cut will be self-defeating. At a time when Governments want to kick start our economy, taking £286 million from the pockets of people who would spend it locally is economically futile at best. It is a benefit cut imposed on Wales without any mandate.

The UK benefits system we have is far from universal in its benefit. It is not a credit to our society; it isolates people, it sets them apart and seeks to degrade them. The impact of this cut, £20 a week, will be measured in cortisol and calamity. The mental health impact of poverty, of sudden shocks to incomes, of insecurity and panic, are well documented. Relationships will be strained, debts and loans will rise and anxiety will be felt every day by those families—those thousands of families that will be going through life with that little bit more difficulty, going without those few things more, those vital things that none of us would ever deprive ourselves of. Not a house of cards anymore, but a glass that will shatter any illusion of fairness in how universal credit operates.

I'll end, Dirprwy Lywydd, with a challenge for the Welsh Government. We've had Westminster Tories in control of welfare for over a decade, and we need urgency in changing things. This cut will come into effect in less than a month. Plaid Cymru has proposed a Welsh child payment, learning from Scotland, where low-income families with children under six receive a £10-a-week payment. I understand this will soon be doubled and extended. Wouldn't now be an ideal time to introduce a similar policy in Wales? The time to help these families is now.