Just as people begin to hope that we can move forward from the worst of the coronavirus, the UK Government is ripping support from right under the feet of people in incredibly precarious positions. The Prime Minister's claim that he wants people to live by their own efforts rather than welfare shows how out of touch he really is. Almost half of those receiving universal credit are already in work, and with many having young families, this cut will leave parents and their children behind, despite their best efforts. It will hit more than 3,500 households in Powys alone, more than 14,000 people, many of which will be households with children.

Let's be clear. This will push people into homelessness. This will force families to foodbanks. This will see people in cold houses over the winter. People will be pushed deeper into poverty, with all of the implications that has for people's health and well-being. It is shameful. And nobody in this place should be resting on their laurels. In Wales, more than 200,000 children live in poverty, around 30 per cent of our children here, a higher proportion than anywhere else in the UK. In the year to March 2021, more than 54,000 children received food parcels. That's one food parcel every 10 minutes for a whole year.

I cannot support the Conservative amendments. They fail yet again to recognise that the £20 uplift only scratches the surface of what an adequate social security system should offer our citizens. Not only that, but their amendments also fail to recognise the role that the UK Government welfare reform, particularly cuts since 2017, have played in driving child poverty. And whilst I recognise the work of the Welsh Government, families cannot survive on a steady-as-she-goes approach from Cathays Park. It's a haunting reality of modern Wales that so many children are robbed of their childhood, their freedom and their hope for the future. We must go further and faster. 

I'll finish on this. We don't just need a compassionate welfare system that treats people with dignity; we need a whole rewrite of a social security system that enables people to thrive, not barely survive. So, I'll finish on this: the Government has one opportunity to get a pilot of universal basic income right. The evidence around the benefits of providing—[Interruption.]