Speaking in the Welsh Parliament this week, North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood slated the Labour Welsh Government for allowing child poverty figures to escalate on their watch.
Responding to yesterday’s Statement by the Minister for Housing and Local Government: ‘Child Poverty Progress Report 2019’, Mr Isherwood stressed that Wales has had a Labour Government for over two decades and that even before the financial crash, official figures show that Wales had the highest child poverty levels in the UK: 29 per cent in 2007; 32 per cent in 2008, and that.in 2012, ‘Child Poverty Snapshots’ from Save the Children said that Wales had the highest poverty and severe child poverty rates of any nation in the UK.
He also highlighted that in May this year, the End Child Poverty Network reported that Wales was the only UK nation to see a rise in child poverty last year to 29.3 per cent.
Speaking in the Chamber, he said:
“The fact that child poverty in Wales has risen should concern each and every one of us. But I wonder if she could tell me why she states that the employment rate in Wales is now higher than the UK as a whole, when the latest figures published by the Senedd Research Service show that the employment rate in Wales is lower than in Scotland, England and the UK as a whole, and doesn't mention that those same figures show that economic inactivity was up 24,000 to 441,000, or failed to mention that Wales, after two decades of Labour Government, has the lowest wages across the GB nations.
“You refer to austerity cuts, well, my dictionary describes 'austerity cuts' as not having enough money, and, as such, that was an inheritance, not a choice. We know that, because of the actions taken since 2010, public spending can now begin to increase significantly again.
”You state that evidence shows that key Welsh Government programmes are making a difference by mitigating the impact of poverty. Will you, therefore, apologise, for example, for the Child Poverty Action Group's ‘Poverty: The facts summary’ published in May, which said that Wales had the highest overall poverty rate in the UK in 2018, or for the findings of the Joseph Rowntree report on poverty in Britain published last December which said that of the four countries of the UK - all of which had the same UK Government policies affecting them – ‘Wales has consistently had the highest poverty rate for the past 20 years’, not simply nine?
“Wales, as we know, is referred to in many other reports. The End Child Poverty Network Cymru has been calling on the Welsh Government for some time to produce a new Child Poverty strategy with more ambitious targets to eliminate child poverty. Why has the Welsh Government failed to support calls for any appropriate (Child Poverty Delivery) Plan, as debated in an Individual Member's Debate earlier this year?”
Mr Isherwood also criticised the Welsh Government for rejecting the Wales Council for Voluntary Action's 'Communities First - A Way Forward' report, which found that community involvement in co-designing and co-delivery of local services should be central to any successor lead tackling poverty programme, and, after spending £0.5 billion on that programme, then phasing it out, having failed to reduce the headline rates of poverty or increase relative prosperity in Wales.
“As the Bevan Foundation said, if people feel that policies are imposed on them, the policies don't work, and a new programme should be produced with communities, not directed top down”.
He added: “So, how will the ‘Child Poverty Review Lead’ that you're currently seeking to employ be seeking to apply those new lessons, or old lessons, to ensure that the needs that continue after two decades are finally addressed in a way that tackles the causes and not simply pays for the symptoms”
