1. What action is the Welsh Government taking to tackle poverty in Monmouth? OQ58833

Diolch yn fawr, Peter. People across Wales, including Monmouthshire, are experiencing the biggest fall in living standards since records began. We will be spending £1.6 billion on targeted cost-of-living support and universal programmes to tackle poverty and put money back in people’s pockets. And I do call on all Members to promote our 'Claim what's yours' campaign.

Thank you, Minister, for that response, and I welcome the range of support that is being provided by Welsh Government, aimed at tackling poverty in our communities. I recognise that tackling poverty is a difficult task, but the recent report from the Auditor General for Wales highlights some important areas that the Government and local authorities can improve upon to help increase the effectiveness of those schemes. For example, the report notes that the councils are reliant upon short-term grant funding, provided by the Welsh Government, which is often administratively complex, whilst there are weaknesses in guidance provided as well as grant restrictions. Meanwhile, only a third of local authorities actually have a lead member and officers for addressing poverty, whilst a mix of approaches taken by councils mean that there is a complicated delivery landscape with differing priorities and a focus according to each area. Finally, the report notes that there are a lack of targets and indicators, both nationally and locally, which make it difficult to assess the impact of existing schemes. Minister, could I ask how you will be responding to the auditor general's report? And can I ask what progress has been made on the child poverty strategy and whether this will feed into a wider national poverty action plan, as has previously been called for? Thank you.

Thank you very much for those questions. What is clear from the auditor general, and indeed from the research we commissioned from the Wales Centre for Public Policy, is that there are deep-seated issues and needs, and all partners need to play their part, particularly local authorities. For our Wales Centre for Public Policy, they said that we should look at key issues that actually affect poverty. Income maximisation was one area, and partnership and also making sure that we address issues like the environment and infrastructure. Of course, local government comes into that very clearly. We've got to take a long-term approach to tackling poverty and the root causes of poverty. But I do think that local government is very engaged in this. I'm meeting with them fortnightly with the Minister for Finance and Local Government to talk about the cost-of-living crisis. They're engaging proactively with us and, indeed, they're helping us to deliver what has now been a very successful fuel support scheme. You know that we launched that at the end of September. Already, 266,000 payments have been made, and I'm pleased to say that 5,633 Monmouthshire households have already received this vital support.

It's been five years since the decision to close Communities First was taken. It was the Government's anti-poverty strategy and it hasn't been replaced. Since then, levels of poverty have increased and they will get much worse due to the cost-of-living crisis, which is becoming a full-blown emergency. Why doesn't Wales have a specific anti-poverty strategy, Minister, and do you agree that we need one now more than ever?

Well, thank you very much, Peredur. As I said, we commissioned the Wales Centre for Public Policy to enable us to look at what are the key levers. Clearly, the key levers that will have a huge impact are tax and benefits, which rest with the UK Government. And, indeed, we have to face the fact that, in terms of the UK Government tackling poverty, people are facing incredibly difficult decisions to make and this is as a result of, I would say, the UK Government's mishandling of our economy, which has been a travesty. And now we are moving into the position where we know that not only are people having to choose between heating and eating, which is appalling in this day and age, but also we see that the rate of unemployment is expected to rise. So, we are playing our part in terms of what we can do with the winter fuel support scheme, supporting our discretionary assistance fund—these are short-term interventions—Warm Homes spaces and also, indeed, developing our communities policy, which is a cross-Government initiative to tackle these long-standing issues.