Speaking in today’s Welsh Parliament Opposition Debate on Food Poverty, Shadow Social Justice Minister Mark Isherwood MS called on the Welsh Government to work with the UK Government in delivering its Plan for Jobs including the kickstart programme, aiming to create full-time jobs to reduce the risk of poverty.
During the debate, Mr Isherwood expressed concern that “everyday people in Wales go hungry because they are in crisis” and criticised the Labour Welsh Government for failing to address the causes of food poverty, including low income, debt, access to benefits, substance misuse and mental health, in the almost 23 years they have been in power.
Speaking in this afternoon’s debate, he said:
“As our Amendment 1 states “every human being has a right to a nutritious and adequate food supply”.
“In 5 months’ time, Labour will have been running Wales for a quarter of a century. The Joseph Rowntree report on UK poverty published in December 2018 stated that ‘of the four countries of the UK, Wales has consistently had the highest poverty rate for the past 20 years’.
“Last November’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation ‘Poverty in Wales’ stated that ‘Wales has lower pay for people in every 3 sector than the rest of the UK’ and that ‘even before Coronavirus almost a quarter of people in Wales were in Poverty’. Research carried out for the UK End Child Poverty Coalition published in May this year found that Wales has the worst child poverty rate of all the UK nations.
“Successive Labour Welsh Governments have failed to close the gap between the richest and poorest parts of Wales – and between Wales and the rest of the UK – despite having spent billions entrusted to them to tackle this on top-down programmes which did not do so. Had they done so, of course, they would have disqualified themselves from further funding.”
Mr Isherwood said the Trussell Trust told him in 2014 “that food banks are an expression of something that has been going on in the churches for ever, namely feeding the hungry, that food poverty has been with us for ever”.
He said: “It asked that we all work together, putting aside whatever party political differences we may have, to focus on those in need. They told me that they will be putting this message to all parties and all agents. I pledged my support, and I urged the then Minister to do the same.”
Mr Isherwood highlighted UK Government measures to tackle the issue, which include increasing the living wage, spending over £111 billion on welfare support for people of working age this financial year, and delivering its Plan for Jobs, including the kickstart programme, aiming to create full-time jobs to reduce the risk of poverty. Our amendment 3 calls on the Welsh Government to work with the UK Government to deliver this in Wales.”
He added:
“In addition, UK Research and Innovation, sponsored by the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, has commissioned a research project on ‘Co-production of healthy, sustainable food systems for disadvantaged communities’, led by Reading University. Working together with disadvantaged communities. This will establish effective methods for co-creation of policy, products and supply chains that can be implemented across the UK nations. As a result, every citizen will have the potential to make decisions about their food, and will have access to a diet that is affordable, attractive, healthy and environmentally sustainable. We therefore call on the Welsh Government to ensure that the right to food is embedded in cross-governmental policy approaches to poverty.”