1. Will the First Minister make a statement on Welsh Government measures to tackle child poverty in South Wales West? OQ58632

I thank Sioned Williams for the question. We are in the midst of a poverty crisis, and we are doing everything within our powers for those who are most vulnerable, including children. This year, through programmes that protect disadvantaged households, and schemes that put money back in people’s pockets, we have provided support worth £1.6 billion. 

Diolch, Brif Weinidog. The latest research by the Bevan Foundation revealed that the number of people in households with one or two children who are having to cut back on food has nearly doubled since this time last year, with one in 10 families with one child, and one in five families with two children cutting back on food for children. So, that staggering number of 6,300 children who've been recorded as living in poverty in my home county of Neath Port Talbot, in the region I represent, has surely risen even higher over past weeks as everyday costs have soared. And we know this poverty causes health inequalities in our communities, something that 114 members of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have highlighted in their recent open letter to you, which warns that Wales lacks a focused and prominent strategy, setting specific targets to reduce child poverty and unequal health outcomes. Plaid Cymru have announced a people's plan which would make the pay packet go further, extend free school meals in secondary schools and increase education maintenance allowance. Brif Weinidog, will you heed the words of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and will you work with Plaid Cymru to protect Welsh children from poverty?

Well, Llywydd, I thank Sioned Williams for some of those very important facts. I think I've reported previously to the Senedd that the Cabinet's cost-of-living committee is meeting weekly, and, at the start of each meeting, we are currently hearing from expert groups who are able to give us the most up-to-date information and ideas as to how we can do more to help people in Wales. The Cabinet committee met yesterday, and yesterday the expert evidence was indeed from the Bevan Foundation. The chief executive of the foundation went through a number of the points that Sioned Williams has raised this afternoon, and went through with us the things that the foundation believes are having a positive impact here in Wales, both the things that we have done jointly with Plaid Cymru in extending free school meals—and there are over 4,000 children additionally in the Member's region receiving a free school meal as a result of the work that we have done together—and looking at the impact of the help that we give with the cost of the school day, and with the discretionary assistance fund, with over 4,500 awards in the Member's region alone in September. All of those practical things that we are able to do, and it is the practicalities that this Government is focused on. There is work going on, led by my colleague Jane Hutt, on a child poverty strategy, but, for the moment, we are focused less on strategising than we are on identifying those practical actions that we can assist with that will help those families and those children through this winter.

I'm very pleased, Llywydd, to see more local authorities setting out the ways in which they will use the discretionary fund that we've provided to them to help families through this winter, and I know that Sioned Williams will be pleased to see that, in Bridgend for example, in her region, the local authority has decided to use the money that they now have to provide families with £50 for every child in every family who is receiving free school meals, and £150 to all those families with children who are living in temporary accommodation. Where there are further ideas, and further things that we can work on together, then, of course, the Welsh Government will always be keen to explore ideas that are practical, and which, from a financial perspective, are within the bounds of the possible. 

First Minister, you'll be aware of the recent report by Loughborough University that showed that, in 2020-21, child poverty across the UK went down by 4 per cent, but, in Wales, it had gone up by 5 per cent. So, can you tell us, First Minister, why the statistics are telling us that your Welsh Labour Government is failing to tackle child poverty?

Llywydd, the figures show no such thing. What the figures demonstrate is the impact of cuts to benefits by the UK Government. And if you live in a part of the country where more families depend upon benefits, then the cuts to those benefits, of course, have a greater effect. Let me tell him what the latest research is saying to us about the actions of his Government. The Resolution Foundation finds that if benefits are not raised in line with inflation, then a further 300,000 children across the United Kingdom will find themselves in absolute poverty. I think this is probably the fourth week in a row in which I've invited the Welsh Conservatives to say that they believe that benefits should be uprated—[Interruption.] Well, if you said it last week, then I'm very glad—[Interruption.] If you said it last week, I'm very glad indeed to acknowledge it, because I think the more that we can speak together on that matter, the more influence that we will have. And given that, as a party, you have a direct ability to influence a Conservative Government at Westminster to know that you too believe that benefits should be uprated in line with inflation, that would be good news for those poor families in Wales. Even if benefits are uprated in line with inflation, then the Resolution Foundation says that child poverty across the United Kingdom will rise to 34 per cent—the highest for over 20 years. And for people reliant on basic out-of-work support, the real value of that support will be lower than it was at the time when Mrs Thatcher was Prime Minister. That's why you see the figures that you quote—because of the impact of the last 12 years on the incomes of the very poorest families across Wales and the United Kingdom.

Many children are living in poverty not caused by parental indolence or wastefulness; many parents are working two or three jobs, but at minimum wage, on irregular hours. The expansion of free school meals to a universal provision of meals is very welcome. What further help can the Welsh Government give to support foodbanks, and will the Welsh Government make representation to end the fixed charge by energy companies, which means people are paying for energy on days they do not use any? This is the cruellest charge you've got—you don't use any energy for five days, and you then heat a bowl of soup, which costs you somewhere around £2.50 or £3.00.

Mike Hedges makes some really important points, Llywydd. I think it's one of the most pernicious myths of poverty that poverty is somehow caused by the people who are in poverty. I've never met people who could manage money better than those people who have the least of all to manage by—they have to. And the idea that it's parental indolence or neglect is absolutely to be rejected. The Welsh Government announced a further £1 million to support anti-poverty work at community level in Wales only a couple of weeks ago. That comes now to £5 million in this financial year. And much of that goes directly to foodbanks, who now find that the donations that they were able to rely on previously are drying up as families even further up the income level are unable to manage the impact of energy price and food inflation. Sioned Williams drew attention to the work of the Bevan Foundation, Llywydd, and she will now that, in that work, it isn't just families who are on the very lowest incomes who report that they cannot now afford the basics; it's families further up the income range as well, as people find that the things that they've made commitments to while they were in better times are now beyond their reach.

And the point that Mike Hedges makes about standing charges and pre-payment meters, Llywydd, is, I think, one of the great injustices of our time. I raised this directly with UK Ministers at the British-Irish Council when it met in July, and I wrote immediately afterwards to the UK Government Minister who attended, asking him to take action at a UK level to cancel standing charges for people who rely on pre-payment meters. There can be nothing worse, Llywydd, can there, than to find, having not had access to energy for many days and scraping the money together to be able to charge the pre-payment meter again, that the money you've put into it is nothing like the money that you have found because it has already been taken away from you? In many cases, you will have been put on a pre-payment meter because of debt. There are 60,000 new pre-payment meter customers in the United Kingdom so far this year. Their meters are calibrated so that the first thing they have to do is pay back the money they owe. Then they find that, in all the days where they had no electricity at all, they have to pay a standing charge for a time when they weren't able to access the service. Imagine how galling that must be. The point that Mike Hedges makes about the action that could be taken, at very little cost, I believe, to the Government or to the companies, to put that injustice right is a really important call we've heard this afternoon.