In this afternoon’s debate on the Welsh Government’s Final Budget 2023-24, North Wales MS Mark Isherwood challenged Ministers on the cuts they are making, warning that they are “regressive, irresponsible and dangerous”.
He told the Chamber, “this Budget is littered with false economies that will push many more people into crisis, adding multi-millions to the costs of crisis service providers in the Health and Social Care Public Sectors”.
He added:
“Funding for Social Justice has been cut by £96 Million in absolute terms and £119 Million in real terms. Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence is facing a real term cut of 6.4%, despite the Minister stating that the Welsh Government were ‘mindful of the fact that the cost-of-living crisis is having an impact on the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence specialist sector’.
“The Welsh Government claims it is increasing its focus on the Housing Support Grant, yet funding is flatlining, representing a real terms cut of 8%. This is more than concerning. Of course, Labour Welsh Governments have form for this, where their Statist approach rejects the reality that non-State providers can reach the parts of Society which the Public Sector never can.
“Speaking here in 2016 in support of Community Housing Cymru and Cymorth Cymru’s ‘Let’s Keep on Supporting People’ campaign for 2017-18, I called for the Housing Support Grant’s predecessor ‘Supporting People’ Programme to be protected from cuts, and emphasised the need to also safeguard the Homelessness Prevention Budget and the Housing Transition Fund, which, like the Supporting People Programme, save money.
“As I then stated, the Supporting People Programme is conservatively estimated to save £2.30 for every £1 spent, whilst also levering in other funding, preventing homelessness, preventing spending on Health and Social Care and increasing community safety – minimising the need for high cost interventions and reducing avoidable pressure on statutory services.
“Speaking here 3 weeks ago during the debate on the Draft Budget, I stated: ‘that cuts or freezes in the Housing Support Grant have been offered almost as a sacrificial offering in almost every Welsh Government draft budget for at least the last decade, despite the consequences of increased pressure on the NHS, Accident and Emergency Departments, and blue light services’ and “the Welsh Government should not be pursuing these false economies, and instead should be removing the millions of added cost pressure on statutory services that they would cause”.
As the Chief Officer of Gorwel, which works within four counties in North Wales, had stated to me in a letter, ‘We and our partner organisations need the Welsh Government to reconsider the decision within the draft budget to freeze the Housing Support Grant because what we are seeing on the ground is unprecedented’.
“As Cymorth Cymru now state: ‘Homelessness and housing support providers and local authority commissioners have been left devastated by the lack of an increase in the Housing Support Grant, 93% of service providers are extremely or very concerned about their ability to continue delivering services, Services will need to be cut if there is no increase in the Housing Support Grant’.
“My question to the Welsh Government is therefore why are you still pursuing these false economies, which see key early intervention and prevention services, delivered by the voluntary sector, starved of funding, adding millions to the cost pressure on statutory services, rather than learning from this, working with the sector, truly co-productively, to spend that money better, deliver more, and actually save more from the Welsh Government's budget too?
“Of course, whenever life doesn’t fit their comfortable theories, it isn’t the theories they doubt, it’s real life, or blaming somebody else. What they are doing by introducing these cuts is regressive, irresponsible and dangerous.”