2. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the impact of the rising cost of living on people in Wales? OQ57215

Llywydd, households are under unprecedented financial pressure resulting from the pandemic, our exit from the European Union, the rising cost of living and cuts to welfare support. Deliberate and damaging decisions made by the UK Government are plunging many more vulnerable households in Wales into poverty.

I'm grateful to the First Minister for that. The toxic mixture of Brexit and Tory incompetence and economic mismanagement is hitting families hard. I see that every day in Blaenau Gwent. I'm sure Members across the whole Chamber will see the impact on real families, real people, real lives. We are seeing spiralling energy costs, the costs of food increasing, inflation across the whole of the household budget, and we are seeing cuts to universal credit hitting the poorest hardest, but that's what you expect from a Tory Government. First Minister, what is it that a Welsh Government can do to step in and help support families across Wales who are struggling as a consequence of this Tory incompetence?

I thank Alun Davies for that. I think he's generous to describe the policies of the Conservative Government as the result of incompetence. My view is that they are very often the deliberate decisions of a Government that knows what it is doing, knows that there will be thousands more children in poverty in Wales because of their cuts to universal credit, but simply don't care. Now, here in the Welsh Government today, we have announced £51 million more to support families in Wales during the difficult months of the winter—months in which the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, told me last week we would see inflation rise to 5 per cent, over the winter months, just as people have less money to spend on those basics of energy and food, as Alun Davies said. That £51 million will provide £100 to families on the lowest income in Wales to help them with those costs over this winter. It will allow us to build further on our single advice fund services, services that in the last six months have resulted in £17.5 million extra being claimed by Welsh citizens from the benefit system. And we will continue to invest in the discretionary assistance fund.

Llywydd, when you look now to see the decisions that were made here in this Chamber, when the Conservative Government decided to rip up the social fund, the final safety net of the welfare state, here in this Chamber we decided to invest in a Welsh scheme that is the same across the whole of Wales, that is rules based, that allows people to appeal against decisions where they think they've not been made fairly. In England, they are having to reinvent a system that has long been abandoned, whereas, here in Wales, we will continue to put money into the discretionary assistance fund. A fund that, in the pandemic period alone, has paid out nearly a quarter of a million payments to our poorest citizens, at a cost of £15.9 million, to help those people to deal with the direct consequences of a global pandemic. Those are the things that this Welsh Government is determined to go on doing to protect our vulnerable households from the decisions being made elsewhere.   

In addition to continued cold weather payments and winter fuel payments across the UK, and to the £0.5 billion to support people into jobs announced by the UK Government last month, with £25 million of this going to the Welsh Government, the UK Government announced a new £0.5 billion household support fund for vulnerable households over the winter to be distributed by councils in England, with the Welsh Government also receiving £25 million of this. Last month, I asked your social justice Minister how the Welsh Government will ensure that its share of this money ends up helping those most in need in Wales. I, therefore, welcome the Welsh Government's announcement of a £51 million package to support people this winter, presumably match funded from the extra £2.5 billion annually for the Welsh Government announced in the recent UK budget. How will you, therefore, spend the £11.9 million of your £51 million household support fund not yet announced? And how will you work in real partnership with and empower councils, the voluntary sector, community groups and other social entrepreneurs to help deliver the solutions to the long-term problems of our most deprived communities?  

Well, Llywydd, it's no great celebration in Wales to be offered £25 million by a Government that is taking nearly £250 million out of the pockets of our poorest citizens. That's what I call very small change indeed. I'm glad that the Welsh Government has been able to more than double the sum of money that we received in that consequential. And the answer to the Member's question is to be found in the statement that the Welsh Government has already published today, because, in addition to the £100 cash payment towards the payment of winter fuel bills, the statement details investments to support and bolster food banks, to invest in public transport assistance schemes, to put further money into the discretionary assistance fund, and to go on, as I said, supporting Welsh citizens to make sure that they receive the help they need from the UK benefit system through our Advicelink Cymru—Advicelink Cymru, Llywydd, where we are employing 35 new full-time equivalent welfare benefit advisers to deal with what we hope will be a very strong uptake from our Claim what's yours campaign, which we will be running from now until the end of March of next year. All of those things are covered in my colleague Jane Hutt's statement, and I commend it to the Member.