It's a desperate situation where access to food is out of reach for many people in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. I welcome the commitment to free school meals in the co-operation agreement. I also welcome the commitment of the Government to universal basic income. A report published by the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales found that universal basic income would decrease overall poverty rates in Wales by 50 per cent, and child poverty would decrease by 64 per cent, bringing it to a rate of under 10 per cent. That's down from its current position at 28 per cent.

In preparing for this debate, I learned about food deserts, which actually describe one in five communities in Wales. If you live in a food desert, you will find it difficult to access affordable, fresh food. That could be because you're reliant on smaller shops which are local, which are obviously known to charge more for the same products. That's because you can't access reliable public transport. And that's the same in rural areas like Pembrokeshire or Ceredigion as it is in urban Cardiff.

And food poverty and food insecurity will be all the worse because of Brexit. Our farmers and our food producers are committed to producing good quality food, but they need support, not deals with Australia, which will deliver poor quality food. The situation is not just about food poverty. It's also a combination of Brexit, COVID and also climate change, and deep social inequalities, regional insecurities, and economic austerity and recession. This all means that those families already facing huge financial pressures, reliant on foodbanks, without access to fresh food, paying more in small local shops, will be hit hardest by the Conservatives' bad Brexit deal. It's going to spell trouble for families facing a cost-of-living crisis already; and for our food systems, it means that they are being undermined; for our retailers, who have had to have their calls to building greater stability ignored by Westminster. So, like last week, I'm going to urge the Welsh Government to go further and faster on ideas like universal basic income and a debt bonfire, to ease immediate pressures on families, as well as looking at what can be done to build food security and access to food into policies and planning in the longer term. I welcome the cross-governmental policy approach, in this motion, to food poverty, and I would also welcome a cross-party approach. The Trussell Trust's phrase is,

'We will create a UK without the need for food banks'.

And that's what we should all aim for. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn.