North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has called for Welsh Government action to tackle Wales’s economic inactivity rate for working-age people not in employment, which is still almost 3 per cent higher than for the UK.
Mr Isherwood is concerned that Wales is lagging behind and will continue to do so unless the entrenched causes of worklessness and disadvantage are addressed.
Raising the matter in the Assembly Chamber this week with the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children, Mr Isherwood said:
“Following the introduction of recommendations in their ‘Dynamic Benefits: Towards welfare that works’ report, the Centre for Social Justice has pointed out that more people are employed than ever before, less people are claiming benefits and UK unemployment is at a record low of 4.9 per cent. Of course, we know Wales has a good record and story on that. However, Wales’s economic inactivity rate for working-age people not in employment is still almost 3 per cent higher than for the UK. What consideration, therefore, will you give to doing things differently and to considering what might work elsewhere—Scotland, England or beyond—in order to close that gap?”
The Cabinet Secretary, Carl Sargeant AM, told Mr Isherwood that “giving people opportunity and ambition is something that the Government is keen to support.”
Mr Isherwood added: “We are where we are after 17 years of devolved Welsh Government and until this Cabinet Secretary and his colleagues tackle the entrenched causes of long-term worklessness and disadvantage, and deliver a combined life chances and poverty agenda in Wales which includes family breakdown, worklessness, educational failure and serious personal debt, Wales will continue to lag behind, its people failed.”