With 34% of children in Wales now living in poverty, Shadow Social Justice Minister and North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has urged the Welsh Government to take a different approach in dealing with the problem.
Raising the matter in Wednesday’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament with the Social Justice Minister, Mr Isherwood said “despite having received Billions in supposedly temporary funding designed to support economic development and reduce inequality between Nations and Regions”, Welsh Government policies have failed to reduce child poverty levels.
He said:
“Shamefully, 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 now 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, with 5 per cent of the UK population, Wales only produces 3.4 per cent of the UK's wealth, that Wales has the lowest employment rate in Great Britain, and that pay packets in Wales are the lowest in the UK - and all this despite having received Billions in supposedly temporary funding designed to support economic development and reduce inequality between Nations and Regions.
“As I said here in 2009, ‘it is a national tragedy that more children are falling into poverty in Wales and that the Welsh Government's policies to tackle it appear to have failed’. After a further 13 years, what action, if any, will you take with your Cabinet colleagues to learn from this experience, change tack and deliver a Growth Plan with the Business and Third Sectors, and our Communities, to finally build a more prosperous Welsh Economy?
In her response, the Minister claimed that “child poverty fell year after year under the Labour Government and it has risen year after year during the last 12 years of coalition and Tory Governments, as a result of direct and deliberate policies”.
Mr Isherwood added:
“I don't think you were listening earlier to my figures, which were accurate and which I actually put to you 18 years ago. Child poverty in Wales did fall for a few years after the Blair-Brown Government came in, but then it started rising again and had reached the highest level in the UK, not last year but in 2008. And it has risen again, whilst going backwards in the rest of the UK.
“That is the reality, and the outcome I referred to was consequent upon Welsh Government policies. So, what are you going to do about it? You've had 23 years, the scorebook is atrocious and the impact on people’s lives is terrible.”