North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has warned that the real-terms cut to the Housing Support Grant outlined in the Welsh Government’s draft budget for 2023-24 will result in increased pressures on the NHS, Accident and Emergency Departments, and blue-light services.
In yesterday’s debate on the Draft Budget, fellow Welsh Conservative MS for North Wales Sam Rowlands highlighted a £14million real-terms cut to the Housing Support Grant, which he said is “having a significant effect on the housing support grant workforce, and it’s clear that the absence of any increase to this budget means that service delivery is at risk, and ultimately it will cost the taxpayer more in the long run, because this preventative service is not being properly supported.”
This is an argument Mr Isherwood has been making in response to Draft Welsh Government Budgets year after year.
Intervening on Sam Rowlands MS, he said:
“Do you share my concern 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 do you agree that 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?
Mr Rowlands agreed.
Speaking after the meeting, Mr Isherwood said:
“As the Chief Officer of Gorwel, which works within four counties in North Wales, has 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’.
“He goes on to state ‘Official statistics show that there are over 8,500 people in temporary accommodation in Wales and this figure is growing by around 500 every month. At the same time, the draft budget would put the funding for services in real terms at £18 million less than it was in 2012”.
“My question to the Welsh Government is therefore the same as I have raised in response to their previous draft budgets; 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?
“What they are doing by proposing these cuts is both irresponsible and dangerous.”