He also spoke about how credit is denied, often, to older people and how, actually, people, because of their circumstances, can be affected even more. I thank the Minister for her contribution and her update on some of the ways in which the Government is acting on this. I welcome the news about the 'Claim what's yours' campaign. I would prefer automatic benefit payment, but I do welcome the news about people being advertised more about what they are entitled to claim. One of the overwhelming points that's come up time and again, I think, in this debate is how circumstances can push anyone into debt. COVID and rising bills have made people's debts more acute, but households all over Wales were already in a daily battle to afford to keep the heating on, cutting back on this, going without that; people struggling to spend enough, not on extravagances, but their basic existence.

In Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, two characters are talking about bankruptcy and one of them asks the other, 'How did you go bankrupt?' To which the other replies that it happened in two ways: gradually, then suddenly. And that, surely, Llywydd, encapsulates the horror of any debt: a process that has been on the brink of happening for so long, and then something pushes it over the edge—the unexpected emergency, new shoes, a pay cheque not arriving, a funeral. And in this debate about debt, we've talked about the 'suddenlys', haven't we? The energy bill crisis and the hot panic it caused; the pandemic that's coated almost every aspect of life in difficulty; the cruel cut to universal credit; all of these 'suddenlys' that pushed more people into poverty. But they are also the 'graduallys': the persistent, nefarious structures that trap people on the edge of ruin every day; the energy market we have that passes on risk-free profits to shareholders and pushes prices up for the people who need their product to live; the borrowing system that allows banks to lend to each other at almost negative interest rates, but forces the desperate mother to pay through the nose; systems that all but ensure that there have to be losers. Libertarian economists claim the market will always provide, but they don't specify what it will provide. For families at the bottom, the unfettered free market can provide nothing but misery, and living with this insecurity, this constant threat of poverty, that is exhausting. It's steadily traumatising. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has found that one in every two adults in debt has a mental health problem, be it provoked by guilt, isolation, anxiety, hopelessness. Research from 2018 found people experiencing problem debt were three times as likely to have considered taking their own life.

Llywydd, the structures of our society allow this to persist. They price in that pain and despair—gradually, then suddenly. Adam Smith used to proclaim the fabled invisible hand of the market, but, as I hope this debate has clarified, for the poor in our community, that invisible hand is an all-too-visible clenched fist that grinds them further into desperation and penury. No-one should be in debt simply from struggling to survive. And it's the last clause of our motion that I'll close with: the need to introduce measures that place a duty on public bodies to prevent debt. Because managing debt once it's happened doesn't do away with trauma or tragedy. Supporting people with dignity and respect and preventing that harm from occurring—that is how a civilised society should operate, and it's a motion and a principle, Llywydd, that I commend to the Chamber.