Live Debate: Welsh Affairs Committee - 21st Oct 2026

Welsh Affairs Committee

Wednesday 21st October 2026

(began 1 day, 9 hours ago)

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14:34

Ruth Jones

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Welcome to this oral evidence session of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee. My name is Ruth Jones and I'm the chair of the committee. And before we begin this afternoon, I do want to draw attention to the remarks made by the Prime Minister this afternoon in Prime Minister's Questions. Today we mark the 60 years since the disaster that happened in Aberfan. So we want to send our thoughts to the families and communities who continue to be impacted by these tragic events. So it's good to commemorate that. And obviously, apologies from Gerald Jones, who can't be here today because he's at home in in the constituency with the king and Queen.

So there we are. But moving on, we are today talking about child poverty in Wales and our first evidence session of our inquiry into working towards ending child poverty in Wales. And as part of our work, we will be looking at the key drivers of child poverty in Wales and how the UK and Welsh governments work together towards ending child poverty in Wales. So I'd like to welcome our witnesses. Today we have Maggie Jones, head of policy at Bevan Foundation, who's on screen virtually. We have Laurie Ryle and national director for Wales at Action for children.

We have Tom Wernham, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and Sarah Crawley, director of children's services for Cymru and UK programmes at Barnardo's. So welcome to you all. I will just start by asking, could any members declare any interest they may have before we start the session? No that's fine. Okay. Thank you very much. Let me start by asking Maggie Jones first. Maybe could you briefly outline the story of child poverty in Wales over the past 25 years? You know, we're looking at, say, where we were at the millennium, at the beginning of the turn of the century and where we are now in terms of the trends and things like that.

If you could just very briefly outline that, please.

14:36

Speaker 1

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Yes. Of course. Yeah. Thanks for inviting us today. So I'd say in the general picture is probably one that people are familiar with that we know that 1 in 3 children in Wales live in poverty, and that's a figure that hasn't really changed over the last two decades. It's it's basically hovered around that 1 in 3 level. And however, despite the fact that that headline income poverty rate hasn't changed, what's been happening under the surface is that poverty has got deeper and particularly over recent years. So we know now that almost half of 47% of people in Wales who live in poverty live in what's classed as very deep poverty.

So that's an income that is at or below 40% of the median. And we know that, you know, families who are experiencing that kind of poverty are likely to be going without many of the basics. So that those are sort of the headlines at the moment. And there's a lot more, obviously, to discuss in how some of the characteristics of child poverty have changed to.

14:37

Ruth Jones

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Yeah, thank you for outlining that. So clearly, I'm going to move on to David Chadwick, please.

14:37

David Chadwick

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Thank you. Chair. This is a question for Tom. I'm sure everybody in this room is well aware that we've suffered job losses, lack of investment in Wales for decades now. How does that economic weakness, those economic failures, contribute to the very high levels of child poverty that have been mentioned already?

14:37

Speaker 2

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Yeah, it's definitely a sort of a key part of the underlying context. Obviously, the labour market and earnings are a key driver of household incomes. And I think what stands out when looking at Wales and comparing it to the rest of the UK, is that a gap seems to have opened up between. Whereas in the rest of the UK, in terms of employment rates, particularly since 2019, and though the data has got very uncertain since then, so it's really hard to be sure of exact magnitudes. It does look like, you know, Wales had been catching up with the rest of the UK in terms of employment rates up until then, the gap has has widened again.

So that just makes the the job a bit harder in terms of bringing poverty rates down. And it also makes it more expensive to bring poverty rates down because you've got to either, you know, pay more in benefits to those families who are getting less money from work or you've got to, you know, take real efforts to, to, to restore that level. And then we also see lower earnings amongst those who are in work in Wales. And that's got, you know, quite a few contributors. There are fewer sort of very high productivity industries in terms of financial sector and tech sector, but there also seems to be lower productivity when comparing industries like for like with the rest of the UK.

So yeah, there's a few different challenges there.

14:39

David Chadwick

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And would you agree that developing, growing the private sector in Wales is the best long way? There's the best long term tactic to solving child poverty. And do you see any policies, either from the Welsh or the UK government , that give you particular hope at the moment that this will be closed?

14:39

Speaker 2

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Yeah, it's a good question. I think, you know, Wales also stands out. Part of the story of the lower earnings is that there's a bigger gap between private and public sectors in Wales than other regions in the UK. So if the government, the UK or the Welsh Government wants to boost incomes, then boosting private sector earnings needs to be a part of that. That said, you know, if you want to achieve quick reductions in child poverty, really it's the benefit system that provides that, you know, the levers to to do that quickly and and to deliver change now.

But it's also the costlier option. Clearly, you know, if you could, if you can boost household incomes by, you know, achieving increases in employment or earnings, that that saves money for the exchequer and boosts families incomes. But it's a much harder job to do. And it's, it's going to depend on policies both at the UK and the Welsh level. So it's a bit of a trade off there.

14:40

Speaker 3

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Would you mind me just coming in on that one. And I think it's really important because we have to have good work. Don't we have a well-paid work and work that's accessible and able to get to? And I just wanted to share that 74% of children living in relative income poverty in Wales live in a household where at least one adult is in work. So it's not a silver bullet to transforming people's lives, but and it's also difficult to get to work, have good work, and to be able to have access to childcare and the right level of childcare to be able to do the hours that you would need not to impact on your income and then your benefits.

14:40

Ruth Jones

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I'm sure we'll cover in depth as we go through, but yes, your points are well made. Thank you. Sarah, let me move on to Andrew Ranger.

14:41

Andrew Ranger

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Thank you very much and good afternoon all. This is a question for the three of you in the room, if I may. So all of your organizations operate across the UK, but are there any trends or issues that impact Wales in particular compared to the other UK nations? So if I start with Laurie, please.

14:41

Speaker 4

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Yeah, I think that's a really good question. Thank you for having me here today. I think what we do see in Wales is that we, you know, we have one of the highest levels of personal independence payments, for example. So we see a real difference in terms of the level of need and therefore the level of support or the the type of support that is required to support people to get out of poverty. Sarah.

14:41

Speaker 3

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Yeah, we're seeing it deepening very, very quickly. We've got families that are in deep levels of poverty now, so they're unable to afford essential goods. So that's things like hygiene products. We're seeing hygiene poverty. So they can't afford shampoo. They can't afford washing for their clothes. We're seeing children without beds. And so bed poverty, we're seeing children sharing beds. We're seeing children in families which are in one room. And that's particularly prevalent when we're prevalent, when we've got no recourse to public funds families. So we are seeing greater levels of poverty and families really, really struggling to make ends meet.

And I'm very concerned. Barnardos are very concerned about the rising cost of living. We've seen costs of living go up over in excess of 30% in the last five years, and families incomes haven't gone up by 30%. Their incomes in terms of employment haven't gone up by 30%. So they're really, really struggling in deep poverty and it is affecting children's health. It's affecting their life chances, it's affecting their mental health, it's affecting their education. And we have to address this now because otherwise we will have whole generations of children who are not getting the life chances and opportunities they should have within Wales.

14:43

Speaker 4

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And I think it's just worth mentioning on that point that there is a difference as well between those who experience poverty in rural areas. And I and I say rural Wales, but I also mean places like the valleys or coastal areas of Wales where access and transportation is even more difficult. So it's harder for them to access support. And actually poverty can be a little bit more hidden because we're not seeing the home conditions they're going back to. We're not seeing what these families are experiencing. And there's a lot of even shame sometimes to be able to come forward and say, actually, I don't have a bed to sleep in.

I don't have a warm home. I don't have food on the table. And so that's a real issue. We also need to consider.

14:43

Andrew Ranger

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That briefly before I come to you, Tom, on the point you raised there, were they specific to Wales? Because obviously cost of living is across UK, across Europe, across, you know, you know, but what specifically are they all specific to Wales? What you what you just described.

14:43

Speaker 3

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Those cases I was talking about. Absolutely. They all are. They are occurring across the UK. But we're seeing higher levels within our family support services. I would say within Wales, particularly around the Merthyr area as Rhondda Cynon Taff, those those valleys communities.

14:44

Andrew Ranger

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You mentioned recourse to public funds is one issue, but am I right in taking it that from the answer to the previous question, that those elements in Wales that are around lower incomes and all that kind of. That's the driving force behind those differences. Yeah, yeah. Great. Thank you. And Tom, please.

14:44

Speaker 2

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Yeah. So yeah, as partly the stuff I've already mentioned and just the background, weaker employment and earnings situation is, is, is something that makes Wales stand out. And yeah, I agree the rising sort of cases of ill health is is a key driver of that. Wales doesn't seem to have higher unemployment per se, but fewer people in the labour market at all on sort of. Yeah. Looking at sort of how the nature of poverty differs, I mean, from my perspective, which is looking at the survey data rather than thinking about, you know, the experience of, you know, services for these families, it's actually really difficult to draw rigorous conclusions because there isn't a huge amount of data from Wales.

I mean, the main surveys do cover Wales, but the sample sizes are really small. So all the measures are really noisy year to year. There are a few measures such as material deprivation and deep material poverty, which do try and get at, you know, our family is able to afford essentials. I think actually on those measures, Wales stands out less than the rest than on the income measures of poverty. But yeah, you can't really draw firm conclusions from that because these measures haven't been around for very long. And the survey measures so noisy. So yeah, I, I don't want to necessarily contradict anything that's just been said there because there's a huge amount of uncertainty in, in all of the data.

14:45

Andrew Ranger

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Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Chair.

14:45

Ruth Jones

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I'm in hold please.

14:45

Simon Hoare

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Thank you. Chair. There will be a dwindling percentage almost to the point of invisibility of society, who will say because they remembered or they heard from an older the preceding generation. If people really want to experience poverty, go back to the sort of, you know, the 1930s is always drawn up as the sort of decade where where it was most amplified. So I just wanted to ask this question. We are living in an age where. The welfare state and its principal purpose, the safety net below which nobody can fall, is probably at its most complex, but also most comprehensive.

We have an incredibly advanced free at the point of use, comprehensive national health service and a range of interventions are in in school to support kids from lower income or no income families. Concomitant to that, we have a rise in the fast moving, consumable goods on our high streets. Be that vape shops, be that nail bars, be that mobile phones, be that large televisions, etcetera, etcetera, and so on. And a lot of people will sit back and say, not in a cruel way, not in a nasty way. How, how, how, how do we join up those pieces of a jigsaw that create the picture that you have set out hitherto for the committee, which almost is counterintuitive in how it manifests itself against the backdrop of the level of state support and supports which are available at no higher time.

They've never been greater in volume at any time in our history. I don't know who wants to pick up that monumentally challenging doctoral thesis type question. Maybe Miss Jones would have a stab at it.

14:48

Speaker 1

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Yeah, I think in terms of of what's happened in recent years, we know that those benefits are not haven't really been able to give people the safety net, that they perhaps should be expected to. We know, for instance, that the two child limit on the child element of Universal Credit was a big driver of child poverty. And and there's been a clear link in recent years between families with three or more children being making up a huge amount of the children who are living in poverty. So I think there's that there's other sort of policies that have been brought in over recent years, such as the overall benefit cap, the bedroom tax and things like that, which have meant that those benefits haven't kept pace with people's living costs, particularly then given the huge increases in the cost of living that we've seen in recent years, which I think have been together, taken together, those have been the drivers of that deepening of poverty that we've seen.

14:49

Speaker 2

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I think. Yeah, I mean, the people mean different. Partly people mean different things. When you're talking about poverty, we have sort of a relative sense of poverty and an absolute sense of poverty, poverty. And, you know, certainly if you construct, you know, a fixed poverty line and look back decades and decades, I think, you know, for almost all groups, poverty, you know, will have will have fallen on that measure. Sometimes, you know, people think, well, relative poverty, particularly over time, is something you need to be concerned about because you're concerned about inequality and you're concerned about, you know, the poorest families falling behind the standards sort of set by society at large.

And that's what relative poverty statistics are getting at. The poverty line grows as median income grows. And that's a sort of a real sort of distributional concern. As for whether, you know, in absolutes, maybe there are people falling through through the gaps of of the safety net. And if you think about cases like no recourse to public funds and that sort of things actually sort of making those comparisons over the time, though, is, is, is probably just too difficult because of the low sample size and we don't have comparable data over time. So actually trying to sort of quantify whether there is in an absolute sense, you know, a certain group for whom poverty is persisting.

And the scale of that over time is a bit difficult to do just from the data.

14:50

Speaker 5

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Thank you, thank you.

14:50

Speaker 4

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And I suppose from my perspective, I just want to I appreciate that people might look back at poverty and how things have changed. But from what we're seeing, poverty is very real for the children and families that we're working with. We are talking about families who cannot put food on the table, who children who are coming to school. And I accept they might have free school meals. And we know that that has been a benefit that has supported families. But when they come to school in the first instance and they haven't had breakfast, they haven't had a good meal the night before, they don't have a good bed to sleep in or even bed in.

Then they are in real poverty. And I think, yes, there are a number of measures that are in place to support families, and there are a number that are really beneficial, but we also know access to some of those benefits is a challenge. And I know the UK and Welsh Government are keen to look at increasing the uptake of some of those benefits, but there are still issues that we need to look at.

14:51

Speaker 5

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Well.

14:51

Speaker 3

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I was going to say I think we should ask ourselves the question why does Wales have a higher than average percentage of households receiving benefits, and is that related to a lack of opportunities for employment? Is it related to other factors to do with health? And so if we're comparing that across the UK, if more of them are on benefits, there's greater negative impact, isn't there over time. And we also have to take things like housing into account. I mean, five private rented housing is extremely expensive, and access to social housing is extremely difficult, particularly larger properties across Wales.

So if you are looking at local housing allowance rates, they don't actually reflect the real cost of rent, do they. So we're having to make up that shortfall. So that means it's nearly impossible for people relying on housing benefit to actually be able to afford private rented accommodation. And if the situation particularly difficult in Wales, where we have fewer than 1% of homes listed for private rent in Wales, which are actually affordable for people on housing benefit. So I think that's a substantial change, isn't it? Over the last even over the last 2 or 3 years with mortgage rates and private rented access.

But that's probably been one of the starkest changes over the last 5 to 10 years, I would say in Wales.

14:52

Simon Hoare

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I mean, that segues well to, I suppose, the my next question, which is the responsiveness to data from policy makers and and lawmakers. So we have effectively a mixed mosaic of Westminster, the Senate and local government, all striving in the same broad direction. I wondered if you might have a word or two on the. How they join up in order to maximize the bang for the buck. If you don't mind my using that phrase, and are they sufficiently fleet of foot in order to meet the specific and bespoke problems as they arise in Wales? We could do that in reverse order if we wish to.

Just to just to mix it up. So we might start with Miss Crawley.

14:53

Speaker 3

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Yeah. It's a it's a very large question. Again, I think I think it's having access to good data. And that data is held within different places. So it's held within the local authority or it's held within the Senate. So actually all seeing that data and all analysing it for a specific purpose is quite tricky to do. So we did work alongside the Bevan Foundation to look at 0 to 4 year olds impacted by poverty, and we used it there and we collectively did that. So that was an effective use of data. But what we're not able to do is necessarily leverage that data as a voluntary or third sector or charitable organisation.

What we.

14:54

Simon Hoare

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Can is that just due to our old friend GDPR.

14:54

Speaker 3

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We only have we only have the data that that we hold on our on our service users or that we work with partner organisations to, to calculate or to, to utilize for policy or, or practice direction. So I think it's, I think what we're seeing is we're able to then raise the voices, the stories, the experiences of those children and young people to go alongside the data that we do have. And so it's the quantitative and qualitative experiences. And I think that's probably more our area of, of bringing change. We would hope and focus and rigour, I suppose, to actually addressing the issues of, of child poverty.

But what we're not seeing is an alignment of data and information between, say, the Welsh Government's developing, tackling child Poverty strategy and the Westminster and UK government's tackling child poverty.

14:55

Simon Hoare

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Is there an anxiety that we as a committee should be aware of, of effectively benign turf warfare getting in the way of maximising meaningful solutions?

14:55

Speaker 3

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I don't think I'd call it turf warfare. I think the Welsh, I think Welsh people and Welsh Government are are.

14:55

Simon Hoare

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14:55

Speaker 3

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Trying to trying to is trying to do the best for children, young people in, in Wales.

14:55

Simon Hoare

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And I'm not I'm not I'm not for a moment suggesting that they are not.

14:55

Speaker 3

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But what they need to do.

14:55

Simon Hoare

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But sometimes there can be a tendency of effectively being very, very precious about remit. Oh no, that's Westminster. Oh no that's devolved. Oh no, that's local government, etc. and that matters not a jot or tittle to people who are looking for services and support. They don't really care where it comes from, as long as they get it and it's meaningful in delivering change. So I suppose the question I'm asking directly and would, in all honesty, appreciate a sort of, you know, black or white answer is should we be concerned of. Sort of territorial protections getting in the way of maximising solutions?

14:56

Speaker 1

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14:56

Simon Hoare

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Think Laurie is absolutely itching, itching. She's barely restraining herself.

14:56

Ruth Jones

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And then we'll come to me afterwards. Sorry.

14:56

Speaker 4

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No, I think I think I think you have identified a really key issue. And whilst the UK Government and Welsh Government are aligned in some aspects of this strategy, as I think I mentioned earlier, we've seen instances where the universal the universal basic income pilot, for example, is, you know, that was rolled out and it had unintended consequences because there wasn't a joint between the Welsh Government and UK government. And we're now looking at the kernel payment, for example, in Wales and looking at how we can work together. And that really needs to happen quickly to make sure that that doesn't have unintended consequences.

So I think there are areas where there needs to be better alignment. We need to we need to stop the kind of, oh, this is your area. That's your area. Because different levels of government are working on different things and they're working in silos. And that creates real difficulty . And going back to kind of accessing benefits again, that's a real challenge because there's some benefits that Welsh Government level, or it might be through the UK government, DWP, and there's different access routes to all of that, which is overwhelming for families. So they can't they don't always know what they're entitled to or where to go.

It's confusing, it's a minefield and there's no single point of access. So I think there is work that we that we need to do in that space.

14:57

Simon Hoare

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That that's enormously helpful. Miss Jones, have your word or two. And and then other. Miss Jones I then really will shut up.

14:58

Speaker 1

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And yeah, just yeah. Reiterating a lot of what Laurie said there actually around how some of that joined up working isn't happening. So we know that not all local authorities in Wales have data sharing agreements with DWP, for example, which if that was done more effectively, we know people would be accessing more of the support they're entitled to. But yeah, I think the canal pilot is going to be a key test of that sort of attitude that you're referring to, because we commissioned expert legal advice earlier this year, which showed that Welsh Government does have the power under devolved powers to introduce a child payment for Wales.

But the risk is that DWP and HMRC treat the canal payment as income, and then families actually lose out some of that money that should be coming to them. And I think that it's a good example of something where if we were if UK government were able to facilitate that pilot happening, we can then, you know, there's a lot of learning that can come from these schemes about what works to tackle child poverty. And, you know, we've seen in Scotland with the introduction of the Scottish Child Payment, that that's had a real impact on driving down rates of child poverty there.

So there's a lot we can learn from that.

14:59

Simon Hoare

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Thank you. I'm very grateful. Thank you chair.

14:59

Speaker 2

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14:59

Ruth Jones

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14:59

Speaker 2

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I'll be really quick. No no. Sorry sorry. No, no. I was just going to say to add my voice to some of this one interesting thing I found, you know, when I was just spoken to various civil servants in the Welsh Government in recent months, they often had a different view on precisely what the powers were in terms of Wales's power to do things like the kernel and that kind of thing. And that doesn't seem like a very healthy set up for effective policy making if the policy makers don't know what the powers are. So in that one sense in which they really should be coordination.

And just to add my voice that, you know, there should be more effective data sharing between governments and even within governments as well. You know, often UK government departments don't share data with each other in the most timely manner. And they'll say they have good reasons for that. But yeah, I don't want to make an overall judgment, but that's definitely a pattern that we see all the time. So yeah.

15:00

Simon Hoare

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Thank you, thank you.

15:00

Ruth Jones

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Thank you. And the lack of data or the lack of coherent and joined up data is something I think we will be returning to. Thank you for highlighting Andrew Ranger, please.

15:00

Andrew Ranger

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So having just I think we've agreed that we all need to work better together. I just want to focus on the UK government strategy separately. So I think starting with Matt Jones, I would just be really interested to hear what you think the key barriers are that may prevent Wales from achieving the ambitions of the UK government's child poverty strategy.

15:00

Speaker 1

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Yeah, I suppose it depends what you define as ambitions in that strategy. I think, you know, I think our opinion of that strategy is that it isn't sufficiently ambitious and given all the levers that are at the disposal of the UK government, you know, while we did welcome the decision as part of that strategy to lift the two child benefit cap, we know that that on its own isn't likely to be sufficient to tackle child poverty and that, you know, forecast by Joseph Rowntree Foundation and show that over the coming years that child poverty rates are likely to creep back up without further action.

So I think that's important to note. And it's probably also important to note that, you know, Welsh Government obviously has its own child poverty strategy, and it has a legal duty. Since the 2010 Children and families measure to have a strategy to eradicate child poverty. So there are, you know, there are going to be like different priorities, you know, and we know that the new Welsh Government has committed to developing a new Welsh child poverty strategy and have particular policies in this area as its one of its priorities in government. And which, yeah, I suppose does take us back to that question of how well these sort of different strategies work together.

And I suppose there's also a point about often UK government policies undermining efforts in Wales to tackle child poverty. Like we heard the example earlier about, despite housing being a devolved area, you know, local housing allowance isn't. And that's a huge driver of of poverty for families in the private rented sector.

15:02

Andrew Ranger

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Thank you. It probably it might be fair of me just to outline what the child poverty UK government strategy was around the themes, just so we're all talking about things. That's a bit unfair of me not to do that. But, you know, in the main, three themes that we're looking at was boosting family incomes, driving down the cost of essentials and strengthening local support, such as the Pride in Place programme and things like that. So that's sort of the strategy themes there.

But if I can come with the same main question to Laurie, please.

15:03

Speaker 4

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Yeah. I think in terms of realising the ambitions, I think we've talked about some some of the things already we mentioned. There is a focus within that around getting people back into work. But actually for a lot of families living in Wales, they're unable to work, whether because they've got caring responsibilities or health or disability needs, so they can't get into work. So we can't just focus on work being a route out of poverty, because that isn't going to work for a number of our families . Working in silos, as we may have already mentioned, is, is another barrier.

And that's something that we need to overcome. And there is a kind of lack of indicators and milestones I think, set out within that. And I know for the Welsh Government, they are now currently looking at what those measures and targets could be within the Welsh strategy, but it's unclear what they are within the UK strategy at the minute.

15:03

Speaker 5

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15:03

Speaker 3

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Very, very similar points. To be honest, the depth of poverty that we're seeing and experiencing, I think, is trying to lift 32% of children out of relative poverty, and deep poverty is a is a big target. So we would welcome some aligned measures between both both strategies also social security system, which we've already talked about. It's just not sufficient at the moment to be able to afford those families what they need to not be in relative poverty. And I've mentioned it earlier, we have a lack of data and information about families, particularly with no recourse to public funds.

And so they're not even experiencing that safety net. They're unable to access Universal Credit, child tax credits, etc.. So we've got a very hidden group of children who are in those families experiencing poverty, and they're more likely to experience deep poverty and they're more likely to experience homelessness. So I don't think we can see child poverty strategies as homogeneous. I think we have to see them as layered. And we've done examples earlier, didn't we, where we mentioned the Bevan and Barnardos report, and that looked at 0 to 4 year olds and the sort of likelihood of 0 to 4 year olds to be in poverty within families is far higher than other age groups.

So we need to have a nuanced, addressed and targeted poverty strategies that are actually aligned with clear measures around those groups and around those targeted indicators and drivers for change that we really need to see.

15:05

Speaker 2

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I suppose in some sense, the challenge is the same in Wales, and the rest of the UK is just it's just a question of, you know, what happens to incomes in general and the fact that the really fast ways to achieve reductions in poverty through the benefit system are also the most the most costly earnings and employment, of course, has to be taken seriously as a lever. But I agree there are these challenges. And to add an example, there's been policies in the past where, you know, through the benefit system with tightened conditionality, that the UK government has tried to get more parents into work, but they've gone into low earning jobs, part time jobs that don't really help for long term career progression.

So, you know, that's not going to provide a huge amount of help for families in terms of long term, getting them out of poverty, thinking about, you know, the sort of wider ambitions. I mean, clearly, you know, there's some areas where the Welsh Government just has more responsibility for local services or education, health than the UK government. So it's just going to be a question of whether the policy priorities are aligned and whether they're talking to each other, making sure policies don't undermine each other. Yeah, on the indicators point, I think the UK government does have quite a good range of indicators broadly in terms of it's not just looking at incomes, it's looking at spending on core essentials, that kind of thing.

But it's not disaggregated, you know, very much. It's not zooming in on Wales and it can't because the survey data you need for that is just not large enough in Wales. So yeah, the more evidence to be able to answer these big questions of, you know, which particular groups in Wales and in the rest of the UK are struggling would be valuable. And yeah, just this joined up working thing again, I think is important. Another sort of example I recall from from the English case was, you know, when the removal of the two child limit was announced, that was announced quite late.

And so local councils in England were not able to adjust their own support schemes to sort of take account for that. And some families would have seen lower council tax support because of a UK government increasing their benefits, which probably wasn't anyone's intention. But it's just a matter of, you know, policy announcements happening in a timely manner and the data being shared in a timely manner. And, you know, that kind of thing could easily happen between the UK government and the Welsh Government as well. Just, you know, if policy intentions aren't communicated well and and if the data isn't shared.

So yeah, so that these policies can be designed in tandem.

15:07

Andrew Ranger

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Thank you. Thank you chair.

15:07

Ruth Jones

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We're going to move on to the rural issues of Wales now, and I'm going to move on to Ben Lake, please.

15:07

Ben Lake

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Thank you, chair, and thank you all for appearing before us this afternoon. Can I turn to Mr. Jones first? And following on from the UK government's strategy, ask whether you think there are any particular challenges for rural Wales, in particular from benefiting from the UK government's strategy?

15:08

Speaker 1

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And. Yes, definitely. And I mean, one, I think, you know, it's been alluded to already, but I think for us as well, it's it's not just about the communities that we consider purely rural. We've been doing a lot of work this year with communities in Caerphilly borough, and many of those communities are sort of as cut off from services as as more sort of traditionally considered rural areas. So I think, you know, some of the issues that come up when we talk to families all over the country in those those rural, post-industrial coastal areas are transport.

And that's a consistent theme. And, you know, we know that access and public transport provision has has fallen in terms of, you know, reliable, accessible bus routes and bus services being a really key one. And, you know, the impact that has on people's ability then to access employment opportunities and training opportunities, just getting back and forth to services or childcare settings, that all sort of increases a family's likelihood of living in poverty. And we know that a third of low income households in Wales don't have access to a car. So particularly if you are living in a rural area, you know, that makes that makes life much harder and it makes your ability to access, support or increase your income or manage costs is a lot harder.

15:10

Ben Lake

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Mr. Foley, do you have anything to add in terms of the challenges that rural areas, whether I think it's important, perhaps we need to be clear as to what we mean by rural areas now and perhaps might suggest, you know, access and transport or the lack of public transport might be a helpful definition in that regard. But are there specific issues that you have identified for rural areas benefiting from the UK government strategy?

15:10

Speaker 3

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I think Barnardos in Wales we're actually predominantly a sort of town and city based charity, working with working with families. But when we have worked in rural areas, we often see those areas quite cut off. So for example. Some of the Merthyr Valleys communities, as you say, if only if a third of people haven't got access to a car, you're relying on bus routes, also access to schools as well, and access to education. If you live more than three miles away from a school, then you can potentially get access to home to school transport. But if you live less than three miles, then you don't have that don't have that funding support.

So you could be walking your child to school or ensuring your child gets to school five miles a day. And so that's putting a strain on time and ability to work, access to transport, access to education. So we are also you've got the oil issue, haven't you, as well in terms of Rurality has often oil containers for heating. It's much more expensive. It's more difficult, much more costly to fill up. So we've got certain communities living with that issue as well. And no great solution to that at all. So that's what we've seen generally. But yeah, most of its towns, city communities that we're working with.

15:11

Ben Lake

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Well thank you. And as an MP representing an area with 73% of households are off grid, I very much share your concern about the heating oil situation and. Mr.. Do you have anything you'd like to add?

15:12

Speaker 4

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Yes. Thank you. Well, within action for Children Wales, we do support a number of families who live in rural communities, both in North and South and West Wales. And actually last year actually, we took part in the Welsh Government lived experience exercise to try and get the voices of children and young people . And some of the themes that came from that in terms of for those families who are living in rural communities, were raising exactly the things we've been talking about today, the challenges with transport and accessibility of services, the lack of opportunities for children and young people within those rural areas, meaning actually those young people are much more isolated.

It affects their emotional wellbeing. They don't have the experience of even leaving their community area and unfortunately, sometimes can build this generational sense of, well, there's nothing out there for me. We just stay, stay where we are, unfortunately. So there are lots of issues, I think, with the rural areas that we need to consider.

15:12

Ben Lake

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Thank you very much. And finally, Mr. Burnham.

15:12

Speaker 2

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Yeah, I think, you know, from my perspective, you know, one important thing to consider is that, you know, the broad income poverty statistics do not take account of lots of the differences in costs between rural and urban areas. And also, you know, the benefit system doesn't take account of all these differences in costs either. So those main levers and some of these main indicators aren't going to shed light on all of these issues. Now it seems, you know, we're all still aware of them because we are talking about them. And that's good. But I think it's important to just, you know, bear in mind that there aren't loads of sort of indicators that's going to help us very easily track progress in this over time, which is a bit of a shame.

So I think there should be a focus on, you know, trying to make sure there is the survey data there to try and actually, you know, measure the prevalence of these difficulties and test if policies going forward are helpful at addressing them.

15:13

Ben Lake

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15:13

Ruth Jones

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Yes, I'm conscious of time and we have a lot more questions to get through. So your answers are really comprehensive. But if a point's already been made, you're more than welcome to reference. I've made that point that whatever. So that would be really helpful. But let me move on to David Chadwick, please.

15:14

David Chadwick

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And on that note, I definitely want to emphasize the importance of transport links. I mean, Brecon, for example, used to have a direct service to Cardiff, which obviously meant, you know, it was easier for local residents to be connected with employment opportunities all the way to Cardiff, but then going the other way, it made it easier for tourists to get to Brecon. And clearly tourism is one of our major industries, so that's had a disastrous knock on impact. But my question is for Tom, what are the distinct economic challenges in rural Wales that we should consider when talking about child poverty?

And I fully agreed with Sarah when she mentioned the importance of heating oil and and LPG, because those prices are going through the roof at the moment.

15:14

Speaker 2

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Yeah, I don't have a huge amount of detail to say on this point. You know, just looking at the sort of broad patterns in labour market, it seems like, you know, rural versus urban pay is, is a significant factor here. Sort of rural employment rates aren't, you know, the difference doesn't seem to be too great with urban areas, but the jobs are lower paid and that interacts with transport. And there's sort of less opportunity for people to sort of migrate within Wales to, to those higher paid opportunities. And then, yeah, beyond that, it's just it's just thinking really carefully about what are the what are the extra costs faced in rural areas that might be missed by the system as it is?

And what are the optimal policy levers to really to, to really target those? Yeah, I don't have a huge amount to add beyond that.

15:15

Ruth Jones

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Let's move back to Ben Lee.

15:15

Ben Lake

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Thank you. And forgive me. Mr.. I'm coming back to you. Something you mentioned in answer to my question there about the statistics and. And that they don't always perhaps. And please tell me if I'm misquoting you, but, you know, reflect the differences between the challenges that an urban household may have and a rural one. Would it be correct if to conclude that the the way that we currently measure poverty in the statistics we currently use fail to truly appreciate and give us a proper idea of rural poverty.

However, we need to define rural potentially.

15:16

Speaker 2

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I mean, so the really headline income poverty statistics, they. They only take account for costs insofar as, you know, you've got families of different size and differences in housing costs. They don't take account of any of these other different costs at all. So, you know, they're going to be very much blind to that. And indeed, you know, maybe one area has higher housing costs than another, but because they've got better public services. So people, you know, want to want to live there so it can sometimes get, you know, I think in general, the after housing cost measures of poverty are better at predicting deprivation.

You need to be a bit careful when comparing between areas. Sometimes, you know, there can be other things going on like like that example. And and then beyond that, you know, we've got our material deprivation indicators and those sorts of things which should, you know, indirectly take account of these different costs. You know, even if they're not explicitly asking about the transport available and, you know, the types of heating available, if these things are eating up the budgets of families, then that might make them more likely to, you know, be unable to afford essential. So we do have we do have the statistics there that should be getting at these things, whether they are, you know, really optimally getting some of these specific rural factors.

Maybe not. But, you know, I'm not actually an expert in what those specific factors are. So I can't be definitive on that. But then just the point I made several times now of we've got really small sample sizes. So even with the best measures in the world asking so few people in Wales and in urban and rural Wales that the measures bounce about year to year, it's really hard to rigorously keep track.

15:17

Ben Lake

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On that specific point there. We we received some evidence last week as a committee that that touched on, you know, the survey data or the the inadequacy of the survey data from Wales just because of the small samples. And I was wondering how useful would it be if, for example, a government body of some sort I won't name which might decide, right, let's get a better baseline understanding here and, and actually invest in, in more extensive survey data.

You know, how helpful will that be?

15:18

Speaker 2

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I think, you know, more data is, is always going to be helpful as long as it's, you know, designed in a sensible way. So, you know, if your goal is to just sort of boost the sample size for income measures or deprivation measures, you would want to make sure you're asking the same questions. So you can sort of combine those measures together. By all means, ask additional questions as well to find out, you know, Wales specific information, but you don't want to end up with a different survey. But it's asking questions in a different way so you can't pull it together.

So that's important. The other point is that with surveys in general, we've seen big drops in response rates in recent years. And so it's not just about the numbers of people you surveyed, but are they representative of the population. And you know, we've got reasons to think that's got worse even at a UK level. We haven't I haven't studied specifically what the situation is in Wales. But, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, we've also got concerns about representativeness there. And partly you can get around that by reweighting the data which which which we do.

But that's not going to solve all of this problem, especially when you've got really low proportions of people actually answering the survey. So thinking about how you make sure you reach everybody with a survey, how you incentivize people to answer and to give accurate answers is also important.

15:19

Ruth Jones

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You very much please.

15:19

Speaker 5

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Yeah.

15:19

Llinos Medi

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And this is about intergovernmental working and you have touched on this. So if you've already answered, I obviously don't repeat. But the importance of that cooperation between the UK government and Welsh Government and also local governments in ending that child poverty. And do you think that that those three layers are committed to working in partnership, and you have already touched on it with a canal payment, and do you think the canal payment might be the first test in that intergovernmental working as well? So I maybe, Miss Crowley, you started on. So can I start with yourselves because you've touched a bit on this.

15:20

Speaker 3

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Yeah, I would I would say the kind of payment is definitely the the test bed for us. If we can get DWP and Scottish Government, others working together, then we can get that devolution and that devolved powers. Then that would be that would be fantastic. But it's only £10 that they're suggesting. I mean, it's it's it's quite small, but it will support many, many families, but it's probably not enough. We've already talked about the benefit system, social security system being part of the big driver for getting families out of poverty. So I think it's a good start, but it needs to go much, much further in terms of that.

My my thing would be around local authorities understanding their own data. So understanding the poverty levels of single parent households are understanding the poverty levels of larger families and actually looking at services that can be targeted towards those communities. We do have certain programmes Flying Start, Families First, Communities First, which we've had for quite a long time, but they're supporting families in these issues and with these issues, but they're not putting money in their pockets. They're not putting the direct money in their pockets. That's what they need. So I would be advocating for a better and greater understanding at a local level and powers and changes devolved and Westminster level.

15:21

Llinos Medi

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Can I ask a Mabley Jones as well about.

15:21

Speaker 1

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Yeah, definitely. And and, you know, the the Welsh Government does have the power to to introduce that payment. And what it doesn't have is the power to to legislate to give it a a longer term basis, as Scotland did, because they obviously had deep further devolution of powers over Social security. But what is needed from DWP and HMRC in the short term, just with that pilot, is to agree not to treat that £10 a week as as additional income for those families to make sure that that pilot is able to operate effectively and that we can see, you know, what difference it might make.

And, you know, as Sarah says, it's it it is only a £10 a week pilot, whereas the full child payment on a in Scotland is just over £28 a week, which, you know, per child can obviously make a big difference in terms of families experiences. But yeah, we definitely longer term want to see that sort of full programme and roll out. But we do we do think that that we would want to see further devolution of powers over Social Security to give that a legislative, long term basis. And, you know, potentially the additional funding that comes with that devolution as well.

15:22

Llinos Medi

- -

15:22

Speaker 4

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I just add one quick thing just to build on what Mabley just said in terms of that longer term support, that that is really key. I think a number of the the measures that are in place at the moment provide crisis support. And actually what we need to be looking at is how can we support families in a much longer term approach rather than at the point when they're in crisis, and then we're providing crisis grants or discretionary assistance funds within action for children? We've we continue to provide crisis grants for families, even though they do already have access to the Discretionary assistance Fund, for example.

So it's that longer term need that's key.

15:23

Ruth Jones

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Andrew Ranger, please.

15:23

Andrew Ranger

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Thank you. So returning to this point about cooperation between governments. So I know we've touched on quite a lot of this already, but if there's any points just to add. So two elements to this question. You know, so how how does having two child poverty strategies, Wales and the UK level influence the degree of cooperation and coordination between the two governments? And in future, how could it strengthen it or shouldn't it. You know, so if I go to Laurie Ryle first on that and then.

15:24

Speaker 4

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Yeah, absolutely. I think having two separate strategies across UK government and Welsh Government is, isn't a bad thing on its own. But actually there's a lot more join up that is needed. We see that there is some crossover across the two areas. But actually how are we how how is the Welsh Government strategy influencing the UK government strategy and how , what kind of the consistent measures around that? I don't know whether Mabley might have a better answer than me for that one.

15:24

Speaker 6

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I don't know if it's a better answer, but.

15:24

Speaker 1

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Yeah, I think you'd naturally expect to have two different strategies because the governments have different responsibilities and powers over different areas. And, you know, likewise, some local authorities as well will have, you know, their own anti-poverty strategies for areas that they're responsible for. And I'd say, you know, in general, our sense is that some of the weaknesses to those child poverty strategies at both the UK and Welsh Government level in the past have been very similar in terms of, you know, both current strategies from both governments. They lack sort of clear milestones and targets, which is something that we would want to see.

And, and, and yeah, going back to Laurie's point actually about often the programs or policies that are put in place are more about dealing with the mitigating the impacts of poverty rather than really tackling those root causes. So that's something that we would like to see a lot more Facts of poverty rather than really tackling those root causes. So that's .

15:25

Speaker 2

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Something that we would like to see a lot more .

15:25

Andrew Ranger

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Of from both governments. It's interesting that you say that because, you know, we said right at the start that actually child poverty has remained pretty constant for the last 20 years or so in Wales. And, you know, and I think that there's similar figures from across the UK. So, you know.

15:25

Simon Hoare

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15:25

Andrew Ranger

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You know, are we ever going to solve this by the types of systems we've got now, or do we actually need to, while helping people in need at the current time is obviously clearly important.

15:26

Simon Hoare

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15:26

Andrew Ranger

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You know, are we always going to rely on. redistributive policies or do we actually, as you just mentioned, need to actually get to these root causes. So some of them have been mentioned. It's transport, it's infrastructure. We've talked about jobs and economy and those services. So because it feels sometimes that sometimes we entrench it rather than actually. providing services and support to people to actually get them out of it and probably being quite simplistic there, but it just feels like we're never going to solve this because there's so much great work being done. But as we said, it's not changed in 20 odd years.

15:26

Speaker 1

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I don't know if you want to come back on that. Yeah. And no, it's a good question. And I suppose when we're talking about what drives.

15:26

Simon Hoare

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15:26

Speaker 1

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It's the dual issue of people's incomes not being sufficient to meet their costs. And, you know, that is ultimately what's behind the fact that those child poverty levels haven't shifted because people's incomes, whether that's from work or the Social Security.

15:27

Simon Hoare

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15:27

Speaker 1

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Haven't really kept pace with how much costs have gone up. So I think, yeah, if we want to tackle the root causes of poverty, that's where work needs to focus. So, you know, that can be things that are in the UK government's hands, like the social. security system, sort of overall powers of the labour market and the economy. But there's a lot that Welsh Government can do as well. You know, housing costs are obviously a huge driver of poverty. And, you know, Welsh Government does have a lot of powers over housing. It has, you know, powers over things like childcare, which is why we've.

advocated for, you know, more funded childcare hours on a universal basis to enable more parents to take up work or to take up more hours of work, because there's a very clear link between the number of parents and household and the amount of hours they work, and that the children in the. households likelihood of living in poverty. So it needs to happen at different levels. But yeah, it definitely always needs to,

15:28

Speaker 2

-

15:28

Speaker 3

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Our perspective, always needs to keep those sort of core drivers in mind. Yeah. Thank you. Did anyone .

15:28

Ruth Jones

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From the panel want to add .

15:28

Andrew Ranger

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Anything to that that's not been said?

15:28

Ruth Jones

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No, it's not compulsory. No .

15:28

Henry Tufnell

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That's great. Yeah. No thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Henry Tufnell, please. Thank you chair. Can I just ask the honourable member for North Dorset talked about turf warfare. So I was wondering whether we could talk a little bit more about that, about whether, you know, we've got agencies, UK government agencies like the job centres, then we've got Welsh Government.

15:28

Simon Hoare

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15:28

Henry Tufnell

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Local authority action. Can we have some real world. examples where these agencies are helping or hindering, you know, the addressing,

15:28

Speaker 3

-

15:28

Speaker 4

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Bring down child poverty across the country.

15:28

Speaker 5

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Would you like to start? Yeah, I suppose from from our experience, there are some good examples of where local authorities are providing a single point of access, for example, for our families. And that single point of access will link into a range of support. systems to be able to bring families to one point of contact to say, this is all the support you're entitled to, this is where you can get it from, and we can help you with that. And that is where it is working really well for other families. It is a bit of a postcode lottery because local authorities don't always do that consistently.

So then families don't know where they can access support, how they can access it, who they need to speak to. And it becomes a. complicated system of application forms, criteria that they don't really understand. So I think something that's working well is when local authorities have a single point of access that links into all those different factors, all those different areas .

15:29

Henry Tufnell

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Across. governments and to, to, to give that information to families because you have skills advisors in England that sort of done by Career Wales Careers Wales in. But I don't know how, as another example of whether agencies are helping or hindering, they're meeting their. objectives as a sort of concrete. example where that's helpful to focus in on more specifics. I .

15:30

Speaker 4

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Appreciate your point about local authorities and single point of access. We we in Wales as a charity, don't support parents directly to get into employment, training or skills. So we do leave it to existing. organisations and parties. That doesn't mean we don't direct them to them and signpost them to them, but we wouldn't directly do that .

15:30

Speaker 6

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15:30

Henry Tufnell

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I don't have anything to add. Do you mind if I slightly change the topic a little bit, just because I don't think we've talked about education? So I was wondering about the impact of education. We've seen the shocking results that have come out of Wales in respect of the Pisa scores. So in terms of Welsh children being behind. England two years on science and consistently performing worse, can you comment on whether you think that's had an impact on a higher child rate, higher .

15:31

Speaker 5

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Child poverty rate in .

15:31

Speaker 4

-

15:31

Speaker 5

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Opposed to other parts of the UK? Can I reverse the question? Because I think for me, the impact of child poverty is. affecting the educational attainment rates for children across Wales, rather than it being the other way around. So as I mentioned right at the beginning of the committee, children who are living in poor home. conditions with families who can't afford to put food on the table or heat their home, or have bedding or a bed to sleep in at night, that is going to impact not only their emotional well-being, but their ability to engage well with.

15:31

Simon Hoare

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15:31

Speaker 5

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To be able to achieve what they actually potentially could achieve had they had all that support in place and had they had .

15:31

Henry Tufnell

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A reasonable standard of living. So for me, it's about poverty impacting education. If you look at the. London right, in terms of after housing costs, the percentage of children in relatively low income, 23, 22.

15:31

Simon Hoare

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15:31

Henry Tufnell

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London has a 38% after housing costs. But obviously quality of education in London has gone up. So how in terms of .

15:31

Speaker 5

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Reconciling those figures, how would you how would you view those? I think it's difficult to compare London to Wales for a start. I think they're very different geographical areas and there's lots of things, you know, without me understanding that data set completely,

15:32

Speaker 6

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I don't know, I don't if I can answer that, but whether. Tom, you've got anything to add? Yeah. I mean, I've done some sort of research in this area which is relevant to this question. I think, you know, we can think of, you know, a potential causal direction in both ways. I think, you know, poor education today might lead to lower earnings in the future, lower, you know, poverty rates going forward when they grow up. In terms of the other way round, you know, we've got very broadly speaking, stark correlations with poorer children doing worse.

educationally than than richer children. It's not clear, you know, the best way to actually close that gap, whether. So one example we've looked at is the two child limit, where we were actually able to. evaluate the effect on early. educational attainment of the two child limit. The way the policy was designed meant you could get quite a convincing group who were affected and group who weren't, who were otherwise very similar. And even though that two child limit really drastically. reduced children's family incomes, it didn't seem to move the dial in terms of their early educational test scores at all.

That doesn't rule out. effects down the line, but that's one point. You know, that doesn't mean that there isn't interactions between poverty and educational attainment, but it might be a question of improving access to services and things rather than just giving, you know, cash income in terms of closing that gap. Whereas, you know, where we looked at Surestart centres in England, they were shown to have quite strong effects on educational outcomes by comparison. So, you know, to some extent, if that finding is sort of borne out as we look at other outcomes, it does make the job a little bit harder of do you want to really support living standards now, or do you want to sort of close some of those longer term.

inequalities with, you know, more targeted measures through services and so on? But yeah, it's a question where there's sort of ongoing research to do in terms of what's the .

15:34

Ruth Jones

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Causal connection between .

15:34

Speaker 7

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Income and these wider outcomes. Let me bring in Simon Hall. Thank you. Can I just follow up .

15:34

Simon Hoare

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On .

15:34

Speaker 7

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Henry's question, really with I'm forgive me, I'm a little bit confused. Maybe you can help me. Mr. Taffner asked you a question. You said .

15:34

Simon Hoare

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No, you've . reversed the question that poverty is feeding into. Lower educational attainment. And. And the poverty figures show, as Mr. Tufton has pointed out, London is higher up in terms of the poverty figures when housing costs are taking into account. Than Wales is. And yet London's educational attainment, notwithstanding, that data is markedly higher than Wales. So either Mr.

Tufnell was asking the question in the right order. Or your contention as well doesn't. It's not .

15:35

Ruth Jones

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Passing my sort of logic test, but I think the witnesses have already answered the question in the way they wanted to present the evidence that they gave. So I think that's, you know, if they wanted to reverse the question and then say that you can't compare, you .

15:35

Simon Hoare

- -

Know, London and Wales, then I think we accept that that's their evidence. But if if it will manifest itself with some nuance. But but if poverty is poverty is poverty, if the lack of the impact of a lack of a bed, a lack of bedding, a lack of a hot meal in the evening, etc., is going to have a broadly similar impact on an individual, irrespective of where they are living. There must be some correlation, surely, as Mr. Tufnel appeared to be driving us towards, which is you get into this sort of spiral that lower educational attainment feeds into less opportunity for well-paid economic activity, and it also reduces the attractiveness of entrepreneurs and investors of job creators to look at a particular area because of the educational attainment.

So the two are inextricably linked,

15:36

Speaker 5

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Are they not? Irrespective of which end of the telescope you might be looking? Yes, I think I think that's a fair point. But I , you know, I still stand by my original point that actually the impact of .

15:36

Speaker 4

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Poverty does affect children in terms of their educational attainment. And I would say you're not taking into account some other dynamic. factors of rurality lack of access to services in general, lack of access to educational.

15:37

Simon Hoare

- -

15:37

Speaker 4

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Lack of access to. opportunities that they might have in London, lack of access to the school that they might have. So there are other dynamic .

15:37

Simon Hoare

- -

15:37

Speaker 4

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Are at play. I would .

15:37

Simon Hoare

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Say within that. Within that position. Yeah. Okay. That .

15:37

Ruth Jones

- -

15:37

Speaker 6

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A fair comment. So if you also wants to come in. Yeah, I would just say, look, you you can't just. compare London and Wales and say, you know, one's got higher poverty, but also higher education. There are lots of other there are lots of other factors at play in terms of access to services, in terms of quality of the schools and those sorts of things. I think, you know, where we have been able to do this research on the two child limit, that's sort of isolating the effect of income, but holding everything else constant. And that that tells us that, okay, maybe if you just, you know, give poor families more money and do nothing else, that won't necessarily move the dial on these gaps, but it doesn't mean .

15:37

Simon Hoare

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That you shouldn't target resources at poorer families in other ways to try and close these. Yeah, absolutely.

15:38

Ruth Jones

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But let's, let's just .

15:38

Simon Hoare

- -

Tease out, well, I'm .

15:38

Speaker 8

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Conscious of time.

15:38

Simon Hoare

- -

So we do need to move on because I, I just think you're asking us to accept, on the face of it, what you believe to be true without necessarily having it fully interrogated. So, so let's move away from London and look at the North West figures again after housing 32%, identical to Wales, the part of the country that I'm lucky enough to represent the south west of England in Dorset, 21% a differential clearly between that and and Wales. You go to the north east where there will be very similar demographics and geographies and access points and everything else similar to Wales sitting at 30%, much closer to the Welsh figure of 32.

And yet educational attainment is better in England than it is in Wales. So there must be .

15:39

Ruth Jones

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Something else that's playing into that.

15:39

Simon Hoare

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Okay,

15:39

Ruth Jones

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That's made your point, Simon. Thank you very much. Let me bring it was more a question than a point, I know, but I'm conscious that education is is not an issue that we're covering today. We're looking at child poverty.

15:39

Llinos Medi

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I accept the links with education. I'm going to bring. Seniors may be at that point, and I think I'm going to ask the. question that the data being used here is after housing costs. And you did mention at the beginning. So can you please. explain that the housing cost and the the. pressures on Welsh. families due to rurality due to. deprivation and. deindustrialisation for decades and so on, that this this alone for falling housing costs isn't a true. reflection of the. challenges faced our facing our children and young people, and then how they can then succeed.

educationally in those communities as well. And and you can evidence that if you can't, if you have any of that as well,

15:39

Speaker 9

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Maybe you want me to turn to.

15:39

Speaker 1

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I'll turn to my first. And yeah, I think it's important to note that there is a belief that the, the lower child poverty rates in. Scotland and Northern Ireland are in part due to lower housing costs in in those in those parts of the UK. Whereas in England and Wales we do have in general higher housing costs. And there's a very clear link there with that as a driver of poverty . And, you know, members will know that those higher high housing costs apply across the country. And there are, you know, pressures around the supply of social.

15:40

Simon Hoare

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15:40

Speaker 1

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Affordable housing, the private rented sector that that apply all over the country. And there's a there's a really clear link there with families experiences. And then on the point about the different measures of poverty, I think it is an important one. There's no single measure of poverty that is perfect, and that will be able to give you a complete picture of of children and families. experiences on their own. And so I think what we would.

15:41

Simon Hoare

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15:41

Speaker 1

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Particularly as the Welsh Government develops its new child poverty.

15:41

Simon Hoare

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15:41

Speaker 1

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Is to look at including measures and targets across a range of different measures of poverty, because sort of taken together, they can provide a more complete picture of, you know. incomes and.

15:41

Simon Hoare

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Costs. material deprivation.

15:41

Speaker 1

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Depth of poverty,

15:41

Speaker 2

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15:41

Ruth Jones

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That's needed to sort of give a more .

15:41

David Chadwick

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Complete picture. Let me bring in David Chadwick. This is a very quick question. Laura, you mentioned that there's one local. authority .

15:41

Speaker 5

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Where they have .

15:41

David Chadwick

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A single point of access.

15:41

Ruth Jones

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Which local authority .

15:41

Speaker 10

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15:41

Ruth Jones

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Cardiff. Thanks. I like that answer.

15:41

Llinos Medi

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Let's move on to. We were fortunate over the summer that we were able to have a. In this inquiry we sat down with the young families members so that we were able to speak to teenagers and young peoples and the impact of rural poverty and so on. And but obviously, the voice of young people, children and people's extremely important. And have you any good examples where young children and and young people have been able to.

influence and share their experience and then see a policy change following .

15:42

Speaker 5

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The intervention? So I'll start with Laurie. Yeah. Well, across action for children, we actually have young. ambassadors who support us, and they're from across Wales, but also from across the UK. So we have young ambassadors from every nation who are able to share their. experiences with us and share the experiences of other young people. And that influences policy change within action for children. But we also give them the space to be able to speak to.

15:42

Simon Hoare

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15:42

Speaker 5

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MPs, Mrs. where possible, so that they can directly influence decision making as well. We also have a young person within our Headland School who attends the Welsh Youth Parliament, so they're able to influence from that perspective, which is a really good opportunity for them and they feel really valued and heard within that, which is really, really helpful. I think what we we have also seen, unfortunately, is that young people are often engaged in. consultations and they've they share their experiences. And I think it's important to note that when children do share their experiences, they can often feel quite vulnerable in that, even if it's just writing that down, because for them, they can be embarrassed, as I mentioned earlier, or it just brings up feelings of trauma that they're having to relive, and they don't always hear back from those consultations about, okay, what, what's actually happened following following on from this, what is my voice led to?

What changes it led to what's the impact it's had? So we talk about kind of consultation fatigue as well, which is, which is a real thing. And I think we mentioned earlier the lack of uptake in surveys. And I suppose we don't want to risk doing the same thing to our children and families, and then they're not willing to .

15:44

Speaker 4

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Engage so that we can't hear what their voices are saying. I'll give you a really quick example of where we've really raised children, young people's voices, young carers in Newport, we run a Newport Young Carers service. Education maintenance allowance was doubled with their voices going directly to the Senate to say, we need more money to be able to access our.

15:44

Simon Hoare

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15:44

Speaker 4

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To travel to school, to get the books we need and the resources we need. So that is a direct young people saying what they need, how they need access to it, and what make a big difference and change. So we're trying to do that all the time. What I would say is that we're speaking about policy changes and practice changes as well, and also directly influencing. organisations like ourselves. How do we direct our services? How do we direct our resources? What do we choose to do that could make a bigger difference? And we're always listening to children, young people, to try and do that.

We're also working with local authorities and commissioners to say, where's the feedback that we're getting? What could we do differently with this service? How could we make it more. accessible to children and young people? So we're we're always working within that sort of environment, a more dynamic environment of, of feedback. We also deliver the Child Poverty fund through Barnardos as well. And whether we want to see that data or not, what it is telling us, absolutely telling us is the levels of poverty and deprivation they're experiencing. And one of the things was a lack of.

opportunities that people, children, young people experience when they're when they're living in relative poverty and deep poverty. And I just want to give you a quick example. We've supported. 1450 children and young people in Wales in the last year, with a spend of over. £126,000 to. And it is that sticking plaster. It is that. Do they need utilities payments? Do they need clothing, suitable clothing, winter coats? But the one thing I wanted to focus on was 30% of that spend was actually for what we called the Winter wonder offer, and that was children and young people saying, I'd like a present, I'd like this this year.

And that could be a toy. It could be an experience. But actually they weren't going to have access to that otherwise. So we've been able to give those children, young people some treat over the festive period. And we've done the same over the summer period as well, because their friends might be getting access to days out and trips out and things that you would hope all children and young people would want to experience. They're not having access to that. So it's been charities like Barnardos that have stepped in and really given those opportunities. So that's where we hear it most and directly from individuals.

What do you need?

15:46

Llinos Medi

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What would you like and what could you have?

15:46

Speaker 6

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15:46

Llinos Medi

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Support that. Yeah. Have you got anything to add. No I'm happily no. And can I just come back. You mentioned that more and you did an example of the impact on government decision. Are there any other decisions .

15:47

Speaker 4

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That you can say that have happened from our young people? Baby bundles. Yeah, definitely baby bundles. So although it is postcode related in terms of deprivation and it flew through the Flying Start programme, on average, a. parents bringing their baby home from hospital, it's about. £500 plus just to bring your baby home, just to have the items that you need to ensure that baby is safe, well and supported. And so we've influenced that through work with families, through work with Ben Foundation I referenced previously, and we now have baby bundles being implemented within Wales, which is.

15:47

Simon Hoare

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15:47

Speaker 4

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But it's again, it's a start for. families bringing their children home. And you've got particular cases where we have parents who are incredibly. anxious about bringing their child home. We've had children through our Parent Factor programme, where we've assisted them with parenting skills, and we've got the baby and Me service, where we support families to try and stay together through changes in their. parenting ability. And so that's actually preventing children from being removed as preventing children from from going into care and actually costing an awful lot more money and having poorer life chances. So what we're always trying to do is ensure that we can maximise those opportunities for families to stay safely together.

And baby bundles are just one small part of that, but it's also reducing and removing that stress and. anxiety at a very, very difficult .

15:48

Speaker 5

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Time, stressful time for families. So yeah, sorry, I just I'm mindful of time. Just to give one example, I think something that we, that we have done with the action for children, again, for our young carers in North Wales actually is we've developed a young carers sort of ID card and app. And that came from young people telling us it's really, really difficult when they're having a difficult morning with caring responsibilities. They don't always want to tell people what's happened. So we've developed an app which links directly into the school so they can contact the school and say, we're having a bad morning.

And that change has made a real difference to the lives of young carers and that communication. We've also worked with young people around our G review, which is around the child criminal exploitation of children , and young people's voices were. instrumental in that whole inquiry, and obviously .

15:49

Ruth Jones

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There has been some changes as a result of Crime and Policing Bill as well.

15:49

Speaker 3

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15:49

Ben Lake

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Ben Lake, please. Thank you. Chair, I think we've discussed quite a bit about the. inadequacies of the current data that's available to us. And so I suppose the final question I would have is just that. Do you believe that from the evidence and the data that we currently have, do we have a. reliable and.

15:49

Simon Hoare

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Effective picture.

15:49

Ben Lake

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Of the. situation facing people in poverty in Wales at all, whether that is, you know, is it the case that we have a firmer grasp of the levels of poverty in rural areas versus urban areas, or are there. deficiencies just across the board,

15:49

Speaker 10

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Mindful of time?

15:49

Speaker 9

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So I don't know if I could .

15:49

Speaker 1

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Come to you. Yeah. And I don't want to repeat the points that have been made about the quality of some of that data and how it is actually reduced over time. I, I would say that we have it would be good to improve that data. It would definitely be good to improve some of the sample sizes in Wales, and particularly to allow us to go a bit more in depth around like different groups.

And who's more likely to experience poverty, what that looks like for them. But I would say in in.

15:50

Simon Hoare

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15:50

Speaker 1

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That shouldn't be seen as a barrier to putting policies in place now, because we do know enough in terms of which, you know, some of the larger groups that are most likely to be impacted by child poverty. So, you know, that's going back to those larger families, those with three or more children, and particularly. households with a child under five in the household. There's a very, very clear link with the likelihood of the children in that household living in poverty. And current. policies aren't designed to to support children and families with younger children. So that's there's a clear gap there where the .

15:51

Speaker 2

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15:51

Ben Lake

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15:51

Ruth Jones

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Something, but the policies aren't responding to it. Thank you.

15:51

David Chadwick

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Thank you very much. David Chadwick, please. Are there any specific gaps that you would. recommend are addressed as a. priority .

15:51

Speaker 9

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15:51

Speaker 1

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Starting with .

15:51

Speaker 9

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15:51

Speaker 1

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Yeah, I suppose families are subject to no recourse to public funds are an obvious one that have been referenced already. We also don't tend to be able to do. demographic breakdowns in terms of ethnicity in Wales due to the sample sizes that we have. So but, you know, there is the evidence that there is there shows that there is like a higher risk for those. households from ethnic minorities to be living in poverty. So .

15:51

Speaker 2

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There .

15:52

David Chadwick

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15:52

Speaker 10

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15:52

Speaker 5

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Gaps there that could be addressed. I think one of the things I would say is we need to better understand the impact of some of the measures that are already in place. So, for example, we've got healthy start vouchers, and we know that there's a good take up of those and they are having an impact. But what does that mean longer term? What is the impact they're having? Does that affect longer term the benefit the does it .

15:52

Speaker 10

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Improve the lives .

15:52

Speaker 4

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Of families on a longer .

15:52

Speaker 10

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15:52

Speaker 6

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So nothing additional to add. I'd just say very big picture. You can we can get big picture ideas of which groups are struggling by, you know, looking over a long time period, combining data and also thinking about, you know, commonalities with the rest of the UK. Really the gap is that because we've got small sample sizes actually trying to measure, you know, how is Wales diverging and how is that being affected by policies that starts to become a bit of a hopeless task. So even though yeah, we've got some big picture facts, we're confidence of trying to actually precisely measure how things are changing in Wales for different groups.

15:53

Ruth Jones

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That just becomes really difficult with the data landscape as it is at the moment. Thank you David. And I suppose just to finish, I just wonder, we've talked a lot about data today, and a lot of our inquiries seem to find that data is poor across the board. But I'm just wondering if we could end on a positive note. I wonder if there's anything in terms of the data that's out there at the moment which has enabled within your.

organisations or within your knowledge, to make sure there's a more effective policy, design or delivery?

15:53

Speaker 9

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If there's anything you could think .

15:53

Speaker 1

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Of, oh, maybe he's nodding ahead. Let's go to Matt first. Yeah, I suppose following on from my previous point about the link between having a child under five in the household and the risk of child poverty. And, you know, the work we did with Barnardos on, on that, I think that has helped us then advocate for new policies around. increasing access to funded childcare and a child payment for the youngest children and, and sort of more. support targeted .

15:53

Speaker 2

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At .

15:53

Ruth Jones

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At those families. So I think, yeah, that would be an example from us. Thank you. That's helpful. Lori, did you have anything? No. Okay, sir. No, Tom. Okay. Thank you so much. I'm going to bring this session to a close. Thank you very much for your time this afternoon. You've given us some really in-depth.

15:54

Simon Hoare

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15:54

Ruth Jones

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And I'm sure we will be using those answers to build on as we go forward in our inquiry into child poverty in Wales and how we can mitigate against it. But I want to say thank you very much to .

15:54

Speaker 11

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All of you, and I'll now bring the session to a close. Order, order!

This debate has concluded

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