1. What priorities does the Minister take into account when allocating funding to the social justice portfolio? OQ57577

Our 2022-23 draft budget has provided over £400 million to the social justice portfolio up to 2024-25, including an additional £16.5 million in a range of targeted interventions to tackle inequality, to advance and strengthen equality and human rights, improve outcomes for people and contribute to a more equal Wales.

Thank you, Minister, and of course, as a member of Plaid Cymru, it's a subject of pride to see a number of policies that Plaid Cymru and others have been campaigning for to tackle poverty being implemented in the Government in the wake of the co-operation agreement. 

Further to the First Minister's answer to me on the topic of tackling poverty and the role the education maintenance allowance can play, on 14 December, I noted that he estimated that the total cost of increasing EMA payments to £45, as well as increasing the threshold to make it easier for people to access, would cost roughly £10 million. Of course, I recognise the constraints on Welsh Government finance, but given the cost-of-living crisis and the fact we know that families with children are generally more likely to experience poverty, could the Minister give me an assurance that, when further funding is available, the Government seriously looks at expanding EMA and increasing the payments, even if it's through a phased approach? It was a great help to me when I was a kid and I know it would be an even greater help to families if it was expanded further.

Thank you very much for raising this issue. We remain really proud in Wales of the work that we've done to retain the EMA, and also very proud of the work that we're doing jointly with Plaid Cymru in respect of many items in the co-operation agreement relating to poverty, not least our free-school-meal pledge, which will invest an additional £90 million up to 2024-25 to deliver this commitment in stages, as local authorities are able to expand their work in this particular area.

With regard to EMA, obviously, we'll have to keep that matter under review. We've taken a different approach to our budget over the next three years, allocating essentially all available funding at this point in order to maximise funding and avoid the risk of underspends emerging in years, and so on. So, we have taken a slightly different approach this year in terms of giving ourselves less flexibility, but I know that Luke Fletcher makes a strong case in support of the EMA, which obviously we would want to keep under review.

As the Minister will be aware, the equality and community cohesion budget will increase from £12.7 million in 2022-23 to £20.8 million in 2024-25. This equates to an increase of 64 per cent. From what I can understand, this represents the main increase in social justice expenditure. I'm in no way criticising the allocation of this money to the equality and community cohesion budget. Certainly, the economic impact of lockdown has exacerbated many of the inequalities that people already face and it is right that the disproportionate hardship that they are facing is recognised. But I'm interested in further understanding how such a large percentage increase can be sustained and how it can be factored into budgets beyond 2024-25, because I could see a real issue develop where organisations are geared up for receiving larger budgets only then to be pushed to the wall later on when they are subsequently starved of funding. With this in mind, could the Minister explain whether or not it is the intention of the Welsh Government to sustain or expand upon this level of funding post 2024-25? Thank you.

Thank you for raising this. In many respects, what we're able to do beyond 2024-25 does depend on the funding the Welsh Government receives from the UK Government through any future comprehensive spending review. And it has been good that, in this spending period, we have had a three-year outlook for spending. We haven't had that since 2017, so it has enabled us and organisations and public services to look ahead and to plan much better for the years ahead. And I think what happens beyond 2024-25 will be subject to further discussions we'll have much closer to that date with the UK Government, but I would certainly hope that we would see favourable settlements beyond the current spending period.