The next item is the statement by the Minister for Social Justice on the basic income for care leavers pilot. I call on the Minister to make the statement—Jane Hutt.

Diolch, Llywydd. In February this year, I announced the Welsh Government’s intention to develop and deliver a basic income pilot for care leavers in Wales. Today, I'm pleased to confirm that the pilot will begin on 1 July 2022 and run for a total of three years. During this time, we will test the stated benefits of basic income, such as improving health and financial well-being, and strengthening the opportunities and life chances of individuals. Basic income is a direct investment in these young people and their futures.

Over 500 young people leaving care who turn 18 between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2023 will be eligible to receive 24 monthly payments at a value of £1,600 per month pre tax, starting the month after their eighteenth birthday. This means, for example, that if a young person leaving care turns 18 in July this year, they will receive a payment of £1,280 in August and will continue to receive this payment on a monthly basis until July 2024, subject to any changes in the basic rate of income tax. In line with feedback and advice from our local authority partners, participants in the pilot can choose whether to receive this payment either monthly or twice monthly. This is in alignment with the current universal credit system. Participation in the pilot is non-compulsory and, for those that do participate, will be unconditional. Any participation in additional support or evaluation will be on a voluntary basis.

Since my announcement in February, we have considered a range of options for each element of delivery. Following engagement with care-experienced young people and the practitioners who work with them, it's clear the most effective and appropriate approach to delivery will be to separate responsibility for different aspects of the pilot to different agencies. I will outline the approach we will take today.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (David Rees) took the Chair.

In line with their corporate parenting responsibilities, Welsh local authorities will play a critical role in delivering the basic income for care leavers in Wales pilot. They will act as a first point of contact for the recipients of the basic income and will be responsible for guiding the young people in their care through the pilot. They will escalate issues and highlight any implementation challenges of the scheme to the Welsh Government, and provide a link to recipients for researchers and national policy leads for the purposes of evaluation and monitoring. The Welsh Government will provide the national policy direction for all aspects of the pilot and provide guidance to support equitable delivery across Wales. We will be the central point of contact for all those involved with managing, delivering and evaluating the pilot, and we'll respond to feedback accordingly, with updates to policy, delivery and guidance as necessary.

Payments to participants will be made through an external provider procured under an existing procurement framework. Using a single payment provider ensures a consistent and efficient system that provides the same service to all recipients of the basic income. It will also provide a single point of contact for all participants in relation to payments of basic income. The pilot is not only about supplying money to recipients; it's vital that, before choosing to participate, care leavers are supported to make informed decisions about their finances and their futures. We know local authorities already provide a range of support to care-experienced young people as part of their statutory obligations as a corporate parent. The care leavers we've been engaging with were clear that all young people eligible to take part in the pilot should be offered access to consistent, independent, quality-assured financial advice and support throughout their engagement in the pilot. We've therefore developed a package of financial advice and support for care leavers who are taking part in this pilot that expands the Welsh Government's single advice fund grant agreement, currently held by Citizens Advice Cymru. The service will provide direct advice to young people and also second-tier advice support to local authority professionals working with young people. This will include advice at all stages, from working through a pre-pilot better-off calculation to budgeting advice or financial crisis support. Care leavers will be able to access impartial advice tailored to their individual circumstances, and a single lead organisation will ensure consistency of service delivery throughout Wales. In addition to the individual financial advice provided to recipients of the basic income, we're working with other organisations, such as Voices from Care Cymru and the UK Government Money and Pensions Service, to deliver more holistic advice around money management, education, training and well-being. Recipients will be signposted to these opportunities via their young persons advisers and other support services.

Capturing the voice and experience of the young people taking part in this pilot will be critical to its success. We will work with them throughout to contribute to our dynamic evaluation and ensure lived experiences are central to its outcomes. The evaluation will consider the impact of the pilot in terms of improvements in the experiences of individual care and how being part of the pilot has affected young people's lives. Regular feedback from recipients will ensure an evaluation that provides emergent themes on participant experiences and supports improvement to the pilot as it's rolled out.

Through this pilot, we want to build on the existing support offered to care-experienced children in Wales and ensure young people who take part get all they need to give them the best possible chance to make their way in life and make the transition out of care better, easier and more positive. The focus will be to create independence from services rather than dependence on services as they enter adulthood. We will work with stakeholders, recipients and our evaluation team to monitor the progress of the pilot and make changes where necessary, and I'll pleased to continue to share our experiences and outcomes as this important work develops. Diolch.

The Conservative spokesperson, Joel James.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you, Minister, for your statement, and can I also thank you for your briefing this morning? I found it very useful in terms of understanding your viewpoint. Indeed, I acknowledge completely your view of investing in care leavers and trying to provide opportunities for them that others might take for granted, and I accept that this comes from a position of genuinely wanting to help. I further believe that every Member here would recognise that care leavers are a particularly vulnerable group that need additional support. The Welsh Conservatives recognise this and that care leavers face unique challenges and difficulties, and we want to do everything to ensure that they have the best care and every opportunity available to them. However, Minister, my concern with this UBI trial is that this Government is changing the narrative of universal basic income by conflating it with providing specific help for care leavers in the hope that, after two years, you will have data that justifies the roll-out of a UBI. This approach is inherently flawed, because you will not actually be able to extrapolate any data from such a specific and, might I add, vulnerable group to apply it to a full cross-section of society. Moreover, by using care leavers as your measurement group, I believe that you are diminishing the opportunity for rigorous scrutiny of UBI, because any adverse comments will be met with a counter-argument that the person making them is against care leavers, which is not only very unlikely to be true, but it will, overall, prevent many people from engaging with the scrutiny process out of a fear of a backlash.

Moreover, on the grounds of helping care leavers, we believe that giving them every opportunity to make the best of their lives is right, and we recognise the trauma and very difficult circumstances some of them have faced. However, we also have to be mindful that within this group there are some extremely vulnerable people with complex needs, and giving them £1,600 a month in theory may help them in the short term, in reality it could make the situation worse for them in the long term. Firstly, this vulnerable group of teenagers, some of whom come from challenging backgrounds, could become, without the right help and support, targets for people looking to coerce, abuse and exploit them because of the extra money. How will you prevent this? Secondly, as you have mentioned previously, we know that there are people within this group, although they are a very small proportion, that have drug dependency issues, and having such a large amount of money given to them, again without the right help and support, could worsen existing issues. And thirdly, the Welsh Government is ultimately creating a cliff edge for care leavers who will simply have their money stopped after two years. So, in reality, you are taking some of the most vulnerable people, creating a dependency on an additional income that they are very unlikely to receive ever again and then leaving them to fend for themselves after two years.

Minister, you mentioned this massive package of support that I have highlighted that they will need, but, in reality, this is not the case and the maths don't add up. You're providing £20 million over two years, which will only leave £800,000 to provide the support package, which is woeful at best, and, as mentioned this morning, you are relying almost entirely on the voluntary sector to provide that support. We have heard about the possibilities of people using this money to support higher education. While university degrees take, on average, three years, what you will be doing is not giving them the same opportunities that other people have had when their families have supported them, because you're only helping out part of the way, which I believe is irresponsible. With this in mind, Minister, what assessment have you done to evaluate the actual support needed for care leavers to maximise the use of this money, and what help and support are you offering to voluntary and third sector organisations to help them meet the support needs of those undertaking this trial? What assessment has this Government made of the needs of this group once the trial has ended, and how do you envisage they will be supported after it? With this being a voluntary programme for care leavers to sign up to, what specific help and support is the Welsh Government offering to those eligible to actually sign up and access this trial? And finally, in terms of universal basic income, how do you expect this data to be extrapolated to provide sufficient evidence that UBI will help the full cross-section of Welsh society? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Joel James. I was grateful we had some positive comments at the start of your questions today. I think you recognised that this pilot could offer great opportunities for our care leavers, and this is a basic income pilot.

I just want to start by answering your questions about why we're focusing this pilot on care leavers. We're, as a Welsh Government, committed to supporting those who are living in poverty, ensuring they receive adequate financial support so that everyone in Wales can live happy and healthy lives. Care leavers have a right—this is about a right for care leavers to be fully supported, as we do through their care experience, as they develop into independent young adults. We know that too many young people leaving care do face significant barriers to achieving that successful transition into adulthood. So, basic income is a direct investment in a cohort of young people who we want to support so that they can thrive while they secure their basic needs.

Care-experienced young people are a group, as I've said, we've already consistently chosen to invest in—a top-up for the child trust fund, additional council tax exemptions, the establishment of the St David's Day fund. But it is recognised that, compared with their peers—. This is where you've got to answer the question, I have to say, as well: why not invest in these care-experienced young people who have been disproportionately disadvantaged and who are statistically more likely to experience issues such as homelessness, addiction and mental health? So, this is about actually building on the support, enabling our young people leaving care to take part in this pilot. And given the support, they could have the best possible chance for this transition into better, easier and more positive experiences.

This is a decision, this is a choice that we have made, a priority that we have in our budget. Indeed, it was in our manifesto and programme for government that we would pilot basic income. So, just to clarify on the funding, we've allocated £20 million to the delivery of this pilot over the course of three years. It comprises the payments themselves, administration costs and research and evaluation costs. Clearly, it depends on the take-up and participation rates; it's not compulsory, this pilot, but just in terms of the need for additional financial advice and support, that's going to be provided for those eligible to take part in the pilot—that's what care-experienced young people said. Approximately £2 million has been allocated for this service for the full period of the pilot, over three to four years. So, that's pre pilot through to post pilot as well. So, the funding is there to fund the organisations that actually have responsibility, as we do Voices from Care Cymru and all those who currently support our young people. But also, as I've said, it's the role of local authorities to support them as well.

As a point of principle, I would say—and taking this as a rights-based approach—all of those who meet the eligibility criteria will be entitled to sign up to the pilot if they choose to do so, and it should be treated no differently from any other form of income. Just in terms of their needs and their life experiences, of course there will be existing ongoing support from young people's advisors. Safeguarding procedures would be followed as standard as well, if there was any concern about perceived risk. But this is about actually having a package of support that's going to be available.

Now, it's interesting to look at trials across the world of basic income. For example, one of the longest running basic income schemes in North Carolina has followed children who were aged nine to 13 in 1992. These children grew into adulthood, and lower prevalence of substance misuse disorders were observed in those receiving the income. We've looked at these trials, we've looked at the outcomes. That scheme also demonstrated a 22 per cent decrease in reported criminal activity among 16 and 17-year-olds, particularly in terms of substance misuse and minor crimes.

This pilot will be evaluated very clearly in terms of the responsibilities, but also it is going to be, in terms of evaluation—. We're going to be looking, as we move through this, in terms of support for these young people as the pilot concludes. They will have the backing, the support and the ongoing input in terms of not just financial advice and support, signposting well-being, education, work and broader financial advice. Many of these young people will be accessing other schemes, like the young person's guarantee. I mean, if you have chosen, or otherwise I hope you will, to look at some of the statements that have been made by young people today, young people in care who said to us—and these include young people who've been in care—that this gives them hope, this shows that this Welsh Government, and, I hope, this Senedd, believes in these young people and believes that they should have these opportunities we're providing. 

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Luke Fletcher.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. This pilot is very welcome, especially for those of us in the Siambr who have campaigned or are campaigning for a universal basic income. Granted, this isn't a universal basic income, but it is a basic income, and it still will provide us with valuable data and direction in our journey to a universal one.

We've talked about our reasons for supporting UBI in the past. Part of that reasoning is to tackle the rampant levels of poverty here in Wales. Again, this pilot will give us valuable data and the ability to measure against that objective, given that it is open to some of the most economically vulnerable members of society.

It's disappointing to note the unwillingness of the UK Government to co-operate on this. Taxing the payment is one thing, but the way in which they will be counting it against universal credit is unfair. Using gross rather than net, assessing people for money they won't actually receive is just bizarre and completely unfair in my view. But the unwillingness to co-operate on a progressive policy doesn't surprise me—just another example of the disdain Westminster shows for devolved Governments, further evidenced by the news last night, of course, on scrapping the Trade Union (Wales) Act 2017.

Now, young people leaving care are often already particularly vulnerable to exploitation, as Joel rightly pointed out. There are concerns, which have been raised by Barnardo's Cymru, that this basic income pilot, by providing a large lump-sum payment, which is widely known about, will leave care leavers open to becoming magnets to exploitation by rogue landlords, other young people and criminals, for example. Safeguarding is key. There are likely to be unintended consequences that arise and become clear as the pilot is running, as this pilot will be effecting the lives of some of the most vulnerable in our society. It's important that the Government and the young person's advisers keep on top of this and that Welsh Government makes adjustments where necessary.

Given that care leavers can voluntarily join, I'd be interested to know if the Government will approach those who decided not to take part in this pilot to find out why they came to that decision not to join. And, of course, basic income leaves those with no extra costs relatively better off under a lump-sum payment than those who face additional costs, such as disability-related costs or childcare. Given that young people taking part in this pilot will likely have their benefits effected as a result, how will Welsh Government ensure that those with extra disability-related costs, or those who fall pregnant, for example, during the pilot, are not at a disadvantage to others in the scheme? And further on from that, when the Government evaluates the pilot, how will it take into account the effects of the pilot on those participants with intersectional issues?

An important point for us to also consider is what happens at the end of the pilot. It is welcome that Welsh Government will maintain contact with participants, especially given that once the pilot ends, the money ends, and £1,200, give or take, is a substantial amount of money to have lost, and that, of course, is the figure after tax. Joel made that point, and I think it is a fair point to make.

Finally, given the issues that Scottish Government found in their research into basic income pilots, as well as the fact that certain groups in society miss out through flat-rate lump-sum payments, what other anti-poverty schemes has the Welsh Government considered evaluating in the future? Does the Minister think there might be greater merit to universal basic services, for example?

Diolch yn fawr, Luke Fletcher, and thank you very much for welcoming the basic income pilot for care leavers in Wales. I'm very glad you drew attention to the fact that the UK Government Department for Work and Pensions has declined—I would say, 'refused', but they declined to engage with us. They have declined to disregard this income payment that we're making. They declined to actually engage with us to see if this basic income pilot for care leavers could actually benefit care leavers across the whole of the United Kingdom. But that's what it will do, because, again, we've learnt a lot from Scotland as well, in terms of the piloting that they've undertaken and, of course, we've looked across the world.

But I would say, and I will share a letter that I've written to the Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions, Thérèse Coffey, who I have—. I did write to her and asked to discuss this pilot with her last year. She declined and also decided that the basic income payment would be counted as unearned income and offset and, of course, then be subject to tax and benefits consideration. And, actually, one of the greatest concerns I've got at the moment, and I'll share my letter to the Secretary of State with you, is that although it's declared as unearned income, it will be taxed, but as far as eligibility for universal credit is concerned, they say they're going to assess it on the gross value before tax, which means it's going to be unfairly assessed. I'm giving her the opportunity to rectify that, and I will share that, my call to her, and I hope colleagues from the Welsh Conservatives will back me in that as I share that letter with you.

It is very important, in terms of young people deciding whether they will take part in this pilot, that they make an informed choice to do so. And your point about finding out if young people decide not to—well, it is of course their choice. The first cohort, if you like, has been approached, and they’re very much aware of what’s happening because of the recognition and engagement we’ve had with young people through Voices from Care over the period of the last year or so. They’ve actively been engaging with young people and all the local authorities involved in terms of—. And I’ve been working also with the Deputy Minister for Social Services, who’s working with young people. We’ve met young people—they will have the choice as to whether they take part, and that will be about their circumstances and, indeed, looking at other earnings they might have, and their position in life in terms of jobs, education and opportunities. But in terms of evaluation, we will look at these kinds of factors because we need to learn from the young people, those who do take part throughout the evaluation, about the impact it’s having on them and how they are engaging and what more support we can provide.

I have already mentioned in response to Joel James the fact that we would expect any existing safeguarding measures and support already in place, because they have an ongoing duty of care, local authorities, to care leavers, to be followed and made available to basic income participants. But also, I’ve given you some examples where pilots across the world have shown that people who may have been vulnerable, not just in terms of things like becoming homeless, not being able to access jobs, or training and education—actually, the pilots across the world have shown that young people have benefitted, and that those on pilots, UBI pilots, have benefitted from the basic income, which gives them a whole measure of security in their lives in terms of options that lie ahead.

Disability-related issues—it’s very important this pilot is available, and we think it’s up to 500 young people, diverse young people across Wales with protected characteristics, and they will be eligible for other benefits. So, again, with advice and guidance and the ongoing support they’ll get from Citizen’s Advice as well as their care leaver advisers and social workers, they will be able to assess the benefits they’re entitled to. But it’s unconditional. They’ll be getting their £1,600—taxed, unfortunately—every month regardless. So, hopefully it will build on those entitlements.

I think the evaluation will be critical in terms of seeing this as an insightful and multifaceted evaluation. We need to look at the longer term impacts, and of course some of that will take some time into the future in terms of what this has meant for the care-experienced young people who are going to benefit. But we’re applying a mixture of qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods, engaging with young people themselves to get that baseline data, which is going to ensure that we can assess the impact of basic income appropriately.

I think this in itself will show the important impact of the basic income pilot, because it just does go back to the fact that this provides those young people with the opportunities that they haven’t had, and they might not have had in their lives, and which they haven’t seen, and haven’t been possible for them to have. So, the young people that, certainly, the First Minister and Julie Morgan and I met on Friday just said, ‘Now we’ve got hope. Now we’ve got a future.’

I have six Members who wish to speak, and less than five minutes left. 

I’ll ask Members to be succinct in their questions and the Minister to be succinct in her answers so I can get everybody in, please. Jack Sargeant.

Diolch yn fawr, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m grateful to the Minister for providing today’s statement. She will know this is of particular importance to me, as I was the Member who brought forward the successful motion in the previous Senedd to trial a universal basic income in Wales, and also the Member who chaired the cross-party Petitions Committee inquiry on the topic. I’m proud to stand here today, and proud of the fact that we are launching the basic income pilot in Wales, and I am proud to have played some small role within that.

If I could speak to the committee’s findings first, Minister, there were two points that stood out. Firstly, the need for responsible, reliable adult advice, guidance and support, and, secondly, the importance of the evaluation process. You have covered that in your statement, but I wonder if you can just give some more assurances to these young people.

And finally, if I can look to my role as a Member—and I commend the leadership of yourself and the First Minister in particular on the basic income pilot, but do you agree with me that, whilst we do have differences with the UK Government, they should not stand in the way of the Welsh Government achieving their ambitions? I note that you wrote to the Minister in the UK Government. Will you commit to having those continued conversations with the Minister?

And just finally, Deputy Presiding Officer—

No, you've had over a minute, so—. I've got five other Members wishing to speak. 

Well, can I just thank Jack Sargeant, and particularly thank him for his chairing of the Petitions Committee and the recommendations that came from that committee? We've accepted them all in full or in part, and I think particularly those recommendations—. Guaranteed unconditional pay to the individual—unconditional—but also that care leavers should include care leavers from as diverse as possible a range of backgrounds, and that we should actually work with the UK Government. So, I have already given—. I will share my letter to the Secretary of State. I hope that she will respond positively and that we can overcome particularly the barrier that has appeared in terms of access to and eligibility for universal credit. But still, it would be good if they could reconsider taxing this basic income pilot. It will be a pilot that will be important to the UK Government. We are investing in these young people, and that investment will mean that they may then have less need for public services, such as the services that have to come forward in terms of homelessness, substance misuse and, indeed, unemployment, because we hope these young people will then progress in their lives in jobs, employment, education.  

Thank you very much to you, Minister, and to the other Minister as well, the Deputy Minister, and to the people in your department who have worked so hard on this. I could speak for hours on this, and I realise I've only got one minute, so I'll speak very, very quickly. I'm fully in support of this pilot, as you will know. I met with a group of care-experienced young people a couple of weeks ago, and I would invite all of the Conservatives who don't believe in this to go and meet with care-experienced young people and hear their views. I would also invite the Labour Party in Westminster to adopt this as a policy, as have Plaid Cymru, ourselves, the Scottish Nationalist Party and the Greens.

May I respond to you by saying I look forward to seeing whether we can get sufficient evidence to inform future expansions of this pilot and get more permanent schemes in place in Wales? And to the Conservatives I say: look at the evidence—the evidence all around the world that says that basic income actually improves lives, actually improves well-being. It's not about people just frittering money away. In 2009, 20 homeless people were given £3,000. They didn't fritter it away; they spent £800 of that on dictionaries, on learning and on finding accommodation. So, please, look at the evidence, Conservatives, and listen to the voices of children in care. Diolch yn fawr iawn. Thank you. 

Diolch yn fawr, Jane Dodds. Well, I can't say anything more in response to Jane except to thank her for her support and also just to, again, look at the importance of the global evidence about basic income pilots. And I hope that the Conservatives will at least recognise that this is an opportunity for our care leavers, to give them hope, to open doors, to open opportunities for them. 

Thank you, Minister, for the statement. I'm not trying to make any political points here. I have some grave concerns about this. As a corporate parent for 25 years through the local government sector, I do believe there is far more that local authorities can do. I know you described the packages of support that you were expecting from local authorities, but I genuinely believe local authorities should extend their parental responsibilities over the age of 18 and use the resources that you're looking to spend in this way to focus on real career paths and learning opportunities, with the creation of jobs—actual long-term jobs and careers. I'm really anxious about the drop-off at the end of the two years. There will be some people who manage this very well; there'll be others who are real casualties. And I'm really worried that there will be a lot of casualties as a result of this experiment. I hope it proves me wrong, because these are a very vulnerable, precious young group of people, and we should be treading very carefully in how we do this. But I think it should fall to local authorities to put in those packages of support as corporate parents and an extended corporate parental role. Thank you.  

Well, thank you very much, Peter Fox. I hope that this basic income pilot will prove you wrong. Our local authorities are all behind this. I've met with the social workers, our young people's advisers, as Julie Morgan has, and the First Minister and myself last week. They see this as an opportunity to actually deliver on their responsibilities as corporate parents to young people leaving care. It's a real opportunity for them, and with the backing that we've got, the funding that we're putting in for the support package right the way through the pilot, and indeed the networking, I would like to say that I think care leavers in Wales would like to hear that you do want to look for the positives in this pilot. It would be great if that came from every part of this Chamber today.

Minister, can I thank you for this statement today? I think it demonstrates once again the determination of the Welsh Government to level up the life chances of looked-after children. Two brief questions. The first regards all of the advice that you outlined that will be available to care leavers regarding financial matters. Could you just assure Members that the young persons' advisers will remain the first point of contact for care leavers, and that they will be able to trust those advisers to offer the most relevant signposting, and that they won't have to offer an entire list of advisory services that care leavers should go to to get financial advice? It's absolutely essential that care leavers, with their advisers, choose the best avenue to pursue in gaining advice and support on financial matters.

And secondly, Minister, upon completion of this pilot, should, through the evaluation, the benefits be seen as without doubt to be proven overwhelmingly to be in the interests of young people in having universal basic income for care leavers, will you commit the Government to look at maintaining this particular fund for care leavers in the future, regardless of what happens in terms of the pilot being taken up or otherwise by the UK Government? And may I also—

No, no. Thank you, Ken. 

Thank you. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. 

Diolch yn fawr, Ken Skates. The service will provide direct advice to young people—that £2 million package that I've already responded to questions about, the package of support, financial advice and guidance, alongside the young people's advisers as well, which are perhaps wider aspects of advice and guidance needed, but particularly one to one. But also, it's independent, and I think that's what important—that this package will be independent, as you say, Ken Skates. It's got to be independent, so they feel that they can trust it, alongside their local authority guidance. And it will be pre pilot and all the way through the pilot as well. It's going to be important that that is from experienced advisers, particularly in relation to finance. 

Yes, the evaluation is going to take us through the two years and beyond to see the impact of basic income on these young people's lives. We hope that the pilot will prove that this is the right decision that we've made in terms of our care leavers in Wales, and that then—. It will be for Governments, and indeed other political parties as well, I'm sure, in terms of looking forward to the future in terms of taking this forward as an investment in our young people. I know I haven't got time to go over this again, but it is really important that we do see this as an investment. This is about their financial lives, their futures, and I think looking at it from the perspective of how this will set them off to be fully contributing citizens, paying their taxes and enabling them to contribute to society in the way they want to—running businesses, going into further education and higher education and jobs—that's what we want for our care leavers in Wales. 

Diolch, Weinidog. I fully support the pilot as a step towards a permanent universal basic income. On 4 May, during social justice spokespersons' questions, I raised with you that young people leaving care often access semi-independent accommodation, such as flats in a complex, where a young person has their own independent space but has access to significant support to help make the transition to living independently. However, of course, this kind of accommodation is expensive to run and, as such, the rent can be high. But, previously, for many young people leaving care, rent would have been paid directly to landlords of this type of accommodation via housing benefit. I asked if Welsh Government was going to ensure that participants in the basic income pilot were financially supported to access the best possible support and accommodation and were not financially disincentivised from accessing supported housing. You responded by saying that you'd look at this particular point. So, I was wondering, Minister, if you could outline if this issue has been evaluated by Welsh Government, given what you've said about the DWP, and if you could make it clear that those on the basic income pilot will be able to continue to access supported accommodation.

Diolch. That's a very important question, and I can say 'yes'; I can say 'yes' to all the points. Also, there will be the opportunity to look at whether they want their rent paid direct, as well as looking at their needs in terms of supported housing opportunities, both current and in the future.

And finally, Huw Irranca-Davies.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I really welcome this pilot and the statement today, focusing as it does on care leavers with the basic income. It will add, despite some of the doubters today, to that pool of international evidence, both in terms of basic income pilots but also on support for care leavers themselves towards an independent life as well.

Just to build on the points that were made by my colleague Ken Skates, and touched on by others as well, when it comes to the evaluation of this, there are two interesting potentials. Well, there are three: one is that it doesn’t work, and we say, 'Well, that’s it. We're not interested in it.' But there are two others that may be more fruitful. One is the broadening and widening of this into a basic income that is genuinely more universal; the other one is the continuation of this.

Now, I assume that it'll be for parties to look at this, and the success of this, and to say whether they want to put this into manifestos going forward on a wider scale. But what about the continuity of this for care leavers themselves? Is that something that we could indeed make a decision on before that point?

Well, we've identified and we've agreed in our budget the £20 million. It is actually—. I wanted to say that one of the points that I haven't been able to highlight is that this is one of the most generous payments in the whole of the world that we're making. We're making it, actually, partly because, when we heard that the UK Government was going to tax it, we knew that we had to make it of a sufficient amount to make it actually worthwhile for young people to consider this option.

We do believe that our investment in this, and the evaluation—a dynamic, continuous process for the life of the pilot—will prove whether this is going to make a substantive difference to those young people’s lives. So, I'm very happy to come back and report. I think that many will want to meet the young people; I'm sure they will be very keen to do so, to tell you about the impact of this and the difference that it has made to their lives. And then, actually, to start costing what this means in terms of investing in these young people—investing so that other public services may not be needed in their lives, in terms of housing, and the impact of perhaps those difficulties that many young people in care often do face, in terms of homelessness, substance misuse.

But we're looking at this as—. These young people who've spoken to us, you can see, if you read their stories, that they know what they want to spend this money on. It’s to make their lives resilient. It’s about making sure that they have got the opportunities, and saying, ‘We have now got hope, and we want to prove that we can use this money and move forward in our lives in a positive, proactive way.’ That’s what this is all about.

I thank the Minister.