4. Will the First Minister provide an update on Welsh Government support for Flying Start? OQ58938

Flying Start is the Welsh Government’s flagship early years programme. It continues to make a real difference to the lives of children in some of our most disadvantaged communities, and we have reaffirmed our commitment to support the programme throughout the term of this Government.

Thank you, First Minister. I’m convinced of the benefits of Flying Start. It stops children starting formal schooling with a developmental age substantially below their actual age. We have seen in England the PM scrapping changes to the childcare system drawn up by his predecessor. In non-homogenous areas, lower super-output areas result in missed pockets of poverty. Does the Government plan a reappraisal, based upon the 2021 census results, with a view to identifying the child poverty being missed?

I completely agree with Mike Hedges, Llywydd, about the fantastic work that has been done by the Flying Start programme, and it's one of the benefits of devolution that we've been able to sustain that programme now for what will soon be 20 years. And of course its expansion forms part of the co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru, and we have already seen the fruits of that—2,000 more children already benefitting from Flying Start—and we’ve agreed on the next phase as well, which will come into being from 1 April. Over time, that will see the childcare aspect of Flying Start universally available to all children from the age of two onwards, so there are plans in hand to do much of what Mike Hedges has asked. In the meantime we have Flying Start outreach, which is an ability for local authorities to offer Flying Start help to those families who don’t fall within its geographical boundaries, and it’s always a dilemma of geographically based programmes that there will be people outside those geographies who would equally have benefitted from the service that Flying Start provides. The agreement that we have with Plaid Cymru, the £46 million additional that we will invest as a result, will go a long way to answering the points the Member has made.

First Minister, the Flying Start scheme was introduced back in 2007 as one of the Government’s top priorities for tackling poverty in Wales, but currently Wales has the highest rate of children living in poverty compared to the rest of the nations in the UK. First Minister, this is quite frankly unacceptable and a damning record of 25 years of Labour Government here in Wales. So, what actions are you going to take to make sure that Flying Start is supported properly going forward, and when will we finally see real results and an end to the postcode lottery, particularly for my constituents in Denbighshire?

Well, Llywydd, I still mange to be amazed that a Conservative Member is willing to stand up here and criticise the growth in child poverty when his own Government—his own Government—publishes documents alongside their budget saying that the actions they have taken will lead directly—directly—to thousands and thousands more children across the United Kingdom living in poverty. Does he not feel any sense of shame that he represents a party that takes decisions deliberately, knowingly, that lead to children being in poverty? Here in Wales we do everything we can to mitigate that impact, and it’s right—the hill to reduce child poverty gets steeper with every year of austerity and cuts to public services that his Government introduces. But Flying Start is a flagship programme that has done fantastic work and continues to do fantastic work in many, many families right across Wales. Twenty-seven per cent of children in Wales benefit from it, and as a result of an agreement between my party and Plaid Cymru, even more families will benefit from it in future.