Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Child poverty exists in every part of Wales. It not only exists, but it stains our communities, because child poverty causes serious and lifelong harm to the outcomes of those who are our nation’s future, and the longer a child remains in poverty, the more profound the harms will be.

How many times have we heard the shocking statistics that create those harms repeated in this place, in debate after debate, quoting report after report? But we must keep repeating them. We must give child poverty the absolute focus that it calls for, and retain that focus, and sharpen that focus, because the levels of child poverty that we're now seeing, exacerbated by the cost of living crisis, are so worrying. There isn’t a single council ward anywhere in Wales with a child poverty rate below 12 per cent. That’s over one in 10 children in every single ward. Think of that. Picture those children. And the levels are even higher, of course—much higher—in too many of our communities.

But we must also remember that this isn’t a new issue. And what is now being repeated—rather than just the statistics—by those who campaign against poverty, like the Child Poverty Action Group, who advocate for children and young people, like the children’s commissioner, who interrogate how the Welsh Government is responding to tackling poverty, like Audit Wales, and by us in Plaid Cymru, is that we need a new strategy to drive this most important work, a strategy with targets, to give better focus, co-ordination and to drive the work that needs to be done to eradicate child poverty.

This has been a long-standing call, many months before the cost-of-living crisis and energy crisis deepened even further these appalling levels of child poverty. It’s disappointing to see the Government’s amendment, which smacks, really, of political defensiveness. It really does miss the point of our motion, which is to echo these calls for a strategy with targets to make sure that we're doing the absolute best that we can, with the resources and powers that we have, to achieve the aim we all want to see—that no child in Wales suffers the harms of poverty.

Yes, there's been investment. But that’s why we need to measure its effectiveness against strategic targets, ensuring money is being spent where it's most needed, where it can have the most impact. We need better evaluation, better co-ordination of efforts, and avoidance of duplication or short-termism. Without it, there is inevitably a well-intentioned but scatter-gun approach, leading to instances like the 2018 baby bundles pilot scheme, delivered in partnership with Barnardo’s, which delivered positive outcomes and reduced stigma of new parents by creating a baseline and ensuring that every parent could provide the basics needed for a new-born baby. But this was not rolled out more widely. Barnardo’s, who also support calls for a new child poverty strategy, stated that, at a time of huge financial pressure on most households, this could have ensured that all new parents receive some tried-and-tested, effective support for their young families.

As for the mention in the Government amendment of its current child poverty strategy, let’s remember that we are talking about the one adopted over 10 years ago, revised in 2015, and which Audit Wales termed out of date. And of course, its central target—to eliminate child poverty by 2020—was dropped. So, an update report on a targetless, out-of-date strategy doesn’t really cut it, does it, especially when dealing with such a serious, devastating issue as child poverty.

That progress report arrived in our inboxes after 6 o'clock yesterday evening, accompanied by a written statement. Really? This should be at the forefront of Government business, and yet here we are, in the very last week of business before the recess, a last-minute report. No statement, no debate in Government time in the Chamber to herald what is at the centre of the Government’s amendment.

Turning to that report, it was very difficult to find any evaluation of actions laid out in the update—numbers assisted, impact on beneficiaries, outcomes achieved. Listing the actions and how much money has been spent isn’t sufficient. How do we know what difference has been made on the well-being and economic security of lower-income families with children in Wales? Has progress in any of these areas actually made a difference to overall child poverty rates?