Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Social Justice – in the Senedd at 1:34 pm on 24 November 2021.
Diolch. Thank you, Laura Anne Jones. Going back again to the evidence that we've got—the evidence review for the first 1,000 days—the evidence review does show that individual socioeconomic status actually has a greater impact on individual outcomes than neighbourhood-level measures. So, it's important that we look at it from all perspectives, but, obviously, you focused on issues and needs particularly relating to access to sport and sport policy in rural areas. Now, this is something where tackling poverty is a cross-Government engagement through our programme for government. Tackling poverty has been made a priority in the budget planning process, and it has to be integrated into the development and delivery of our programme. I'll be working closely with all Ministers, including the Deputy Minister responsible for sport policy, to make sure that we can expand those opportunities. It's crucial that we look at and we engage with people as well who have experience of poverty, to better understand the issues they face. One of the good things about my £51 million household living fund that I announced last week is that we're going to put some funding into the school day also, because we know that many children and young people are disadvantaged by not being able to take advantage of some of the opportunities that the school and the school day can offer.