I'll accept that; what I'm saying is that, in my opinion—and it's only my opinion, but that's what I've been paid to come here to give—it is not caused by irresponsible expenditure. Most poor people I know who are in debt, it's caused by an unexpected bill. It just happens. And funerals are the worst. I'll just go through a case I know. So, if I use male and female in this case, it's because of the people I'm talking about rather than anything to do with gender. And somebody's sister-in-law died unexpectedly. She lived in a council house in Swansea, so she had very little money. She had children who had to be looked after by the rest of the family, so that immediately put pressure on the rest of the family. That was then followed by having to pay for the funeral, and a basic funeral is incredibly expensive, and it really does affect. Four or five members of the family had to get together, but you're talking about £500, £600 each. When that is roughly what you have to spend on the necessities of life in a month, it does cause you immense problems.

Can I just say that too many people in Wales, including many of my constituents, live in poverty and debt? In the 1990s, the way out of poverty and debt was, 'Get employment'—simple. Many people living in poverty now, who are building up debt, have one or two family members in work and still have debt. What poverty means is people going hungry, houses not adequately heated and children going without things that many take for granted. We are approaching Christmas, and as many prepare for the festivities, many people in here are planning for their children and grandchildren, there are others where there'll be few, if any, presents for the children, and no special food for Christmas. In Swansea, my MP Carolyn Harris is raising money for Everyone Deserves a Christmas, and I'll be collecting food in my local office for the local food banks and will be donating to the Mr X appeal, which provides children who otherwise would not have a present at Christmas with a Christmas present. All this has been made worse by the cruel cut in universal credit, which has made matters so much worse for many poor people. To some people in here, £20 is a minimal amount of money; to others, it will pay for their week's shopping, taking the 'just managing' into 'not managing'. I'm not going to quote Mr Micawber as I haven't got time, but it's going from 'nineteen and six' to 'twenty and six', which makes a big difference.

But why are people in debt and in poverty, especially those who are working? It's because they're working under conditions that most of us never thought we'd see in our lifetime. You have zero-hour contracts, and you have the worst ones that are minimum guaranteed weekly contracts. So, in a week, you'll be guaranteed to work seven hours. Most weeks, you may work 30 or 40 hours; you are just about managing. But if you're ill, or if the company has a problem, you go back to your seven hours, and all of a sudden, instead of having £300, £400 for that week, you get £70. The bills don't go down, so what can you do? You end up borrowing. And I think that that is one of the problems we have with debt: people are borrowing because their income has just collapsed in one week. Don't be ill—that's the one thing; if you're on low pay, don't be ill. You can't afford to be ill, and that may well have been some of the problems with COVID. Because you cannot afford to be ill and you have to work those hours in order to get paid. I think it really is important that we start realising why people are in debt. It's not because they're spending money on fripperies and it's not because they're wasting money. In fact, if you ask a poor person how much money they've got, they'll be able to tell you to the nearest penny. If I asked most people in here, they couldn't probably tell me to the nearest £100. I think that really is the problem we have—lots of very poor people, and, of course, we've had fire-and-rehire brought in, just to make matters worse. We need to get out of it, but only higher wages, guaranteed hours and a proper job are going to get people out of this poverty and debt circle that far too many of my constituents and far too many people I know are in.