6. Will the First Minister outline the progress on the Government’s plans to pilot a universal basic income? OQ57074

I thank Jane Dodds for the question, Llywydd. Subject to the resolution of remaining practical matters, including the interface of our basic income payments with the benefits system, we plan to introduce the pilot in the financial year beginning 1 April 2022.

Diolch, First Minister. I'd like to thank you for your answer and to further state, certainly, my support and my party's support for the Welsh Government's plans for a universal basic income. Whilst I would prefer, of course, for the scope of the pilot to be widened beyond care leavers, as I've been calling on the Welsh Government to do, I'm still very keen to support the Government so that we can pilot this radical and transformational approach to reducing poverty here in Wales. It is this element of the UBI pilot with which I am most concerned, considering the high levels of poverty here in Wales.

In Wales, almost a third of our children live in poverty, meaning that as a proportion of our population, Wales currently has the worst levels of child poverty in the whole of the United Kingdom. I think it's also worth noting that this is certainly not helped by the Conservative Westminster Government's recent decision to cut universal credit, which of course will hurt the least well-off amongst our population. So, may I ask you, First Minister, how will your Government measure the success of this universal basic income pilot, particularly in relation to how it will reduce child poverty? Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn.  

Thank you very much to Jane dodds, Llywydd. 

I've been doing a lot of reading in advance of this week's questions. I also read an article that Jane Dodds published in September on the many advantages that are put forward by supporters of a universal basic income, and I agreed with very much of what she had to say there. Our pilot will have many of the characteristics that she set out in her article. It will be unconditional, it will provide financial stability and dignity for those young people, and given the supplementary question, Llywydd, that Jane Dodds has asked, it is going to involve a group of young people who we know from the many debates we've had on the floor of this Senedd are amongst the most disadvantaged in our society. Poverty is a real inhibitor on those young people being able to make decisions about their own futures, in which they can deploy their talents and find a path to their futures in a way that they themselves would choose to do, rather than being obliged to make hand-to-mouth decisions, driven by poverty, which confines their horizons to, 'How do I get through today? Where will I sleep this weekend? How will I be able to eat next week?'

We will make sure that we have an evaluation process that is dynamic and continuous, which works with those young people. Our pilot is being shaped already by advice from the care leavers forum and from Voices from Care in Wales, and we'll learn the lessons as we go along, which will give us valuable information for the future about how the concept of basic income could apply to other groups more widely across the Welsh population. I look forward to it very much and I think, whatever the final outcome of the evaluation, Llywydd, the pilot will do good in the lives of some young people in Wales who most need that investment.