7. What assistance is the Minister putting in place to support pupils who are living in poverty over the Easter school holidays? OQ57885

Tackling the impact of poverty is a key priority for us. As part of a wider package of support to help struggling families, an additional £4.4 million in 2022-23 has been made available to support the cost of holiday meals for free-school-meal-eligible pupils during the Easter holidays in this academic year.

I'm grateful to you for that, Minister. We all want children to look forward to their holidays. We want them to look forward to spending time with their families. We want them to look forward to being able to relax without a care in world, to be able to enjoy themselves over the holiday period. It's an absolute tragedy—it's an absolute tragedy—that there are children that you represent, that I represent, that we all represent, who look towards these holidays with a sense of fear and dread, and parents and families in this country who'll be losing sleep over the next couple of weeks knowing of the financial pressures that they will be facing over the holidays, which are far more intense than during term time. It is all the more tragic that this is happening because we have a UK Government that really doesn't care about the impact of their policies and the policies that they've been pursuing on some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in this country. Minister, I'm grateful that the Welsh Government has stepped into this breach and is providing help and support for some of the poorest families in this country. Can you guarantee to this Parliament this afternoon that this Government will continue to provide all the support it can to children and to families in this country to ensure that the spectre of poverty doesn't disfigure their lives in the way it's disfigured the lives of generations before us because of a UK Government that doesn't care about them and their communities?

I thank Alun Davies for that, and I think the bleak situation he describes is the reality for constituents of his and of mine and for other colleagues in the Chamber today. This Government, the Welsh Government, will do everything that we can to support families in Wales. You will know of the announcements that the Minister for Social Justice made a few weeks ago. You will recall the announcement I made a week ago in relation to supporting families who need particular support with the costs of school uniform, school kit, school trips and so on. But, at the end of the day, there is a responsibility on the United Kingdom Government to recognise the consequence of the choices it is making. And we all know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he should have been looking out for people who are struggling the most, chose to look away.

Minister, sport and physical activity play a huge part in developing young children, and for some of the most vulnerable children in our communities living in poverty being in school is the only opportunity they have to access sport and sports facilities. So, Minister, can you outline what support the Welsh Government will be putting in place during the Easter holidays to support those children in poverty to have great access to sports facilities? Diolch, Llywydd.

The Member will know of the announcement that I made in relation to community-focused schools last week, which recognises the important point that he makes, which is that one of the key contributions that we can make to support disadvantaged learners in their schooling is to enable schools to have a community focus in what they do and how they operate. And he will have heard me say that we are investing £25 million in this financial year to help schools expand their offer to the community, and that will also include funding to support schools in their outreach to families in their school community who are particularly disadvantaged, where their children have challenges with their attendance. So, this Government will do everything we can to support disadvantaged learners in our schools. What we need is a partner at the other end of the M4 who is also prepared to do that.