Fresh calls for Child Poverty Strategy in Wales

With latest figures showing that 34 per cent of children in Wales are living in poverty, whilst the UK figure fell to 27 per cent, North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has backed new calls for the Welsh Government to develop a Child Poverty Strategy, focused on concrete and measurable steps.

Speaking in yesterday’s ‘Child Poverty Debate’ in the Welsh Parliament, Mr Isherwood, who has long been calling on Welsh Ministers to tackle the root cause of child poverty, emphasised again why a new Child Poverty Strategy is needed.

He said: “Speaking here in 2019 in support of a motion calling on the Welsh Government to produce a tackling poverty strategy, budget and action plan, I noted the statement by the Children’s Commissioner for Wales then that ‘Welsh Government has a Child Poverty Strategy which outlines its long-term ambitions, but at the moment there’s no clear plan’ and ‘Welsh Government should write a new Child Poverty Delivery Plan, focusing on concrete and measurable steps’.”

“I also quoted the finding by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that ‘poverty and deprivation still remain higher in Wales than other British nations’, and the Statement by Oxfam Cymru ‘It’s not the case that anti-poverty strategies don’t work; it’s about how those strategies are targeted’.”

Mr Isherwood said: “To be clear, child poverty in Wales has been rising since 2004, when I first raised this with the Welsh Government. It had already reached the highest level in the UK before the ‘Credit Crunch’ in 2008, the year it rose to 32 per cent in Wales.”

“Latest figures show that 34 per cent of children in Wales are living in poverty, whilst the UK figure fell to 27 per cent. The primary reason for this remains that Wales has had the lowest growth in prosperity per head out of the UK Nations since 1999, that Wales has the lowest employment rate in Great Britain, and that pay packets in Wales are the lowest amongst the UK Nations – and all this despite having received Billions in supposedly temporary funding designed to support economic development and reduce inequality between Nations and Regions.”

He said: “The Welsh Government’s Child Poverty progress report conveniently published last night states ‘the UK Government continues to hold the key levers to tackle poverty’, revealing once again a mindset focused only on treating the symptoms rather than tackling the causes, and dodging the reality that the Welsh Government has being responsible for matters including economic development, education, skills, Housing, Health and Social Services in Wales for almost 24 years.”

Mr Isherwood went on to stress that austerity was inherited by the UK Government in 2010, and that failure to reduce the deficit risked bigger imposed cuts.

He added: “As every borrower knows, you cannot reduce debt until income exceeds expenditure, and the UK Government had almost eliminated the deficit when Covid-19 hit. Without this, the UK could not have raised the £300 Billion borrowed to see us through the pandemic.

“Despite the UK Chancellor’s need to address the gap between projected public finances and the requirement to reduce debt as a share of GDP, The UK Government has taken a range of measures to help alleviate cost of living pressures. ”

“We now need a Welsh Government Child Poverty Strategy, focused on concrete and measurable steps, and including: a coherent and integrated Welsh benefits system incorporating all the means-tested benefits it has responsibility for; Real action based upon the Local Trust ‘Left Behind’ report in England, which evidences that poorer areas with greater community capacity and social infrastructure have better health and wellbeing outcomes, higher rates of employment and lower levels of child poverty compared to poorer areas without; And a Growth Plan with the Business and Third Sectors, and our Communities, to finally build a more prosperous Welsh Economy.”