Social Security: Tackling Poverty in Wales

13. What steps she is taking through the social security system to tackle poverty in Wales.

This Government are committed to tackling poverty right across the UK. We are reviewing universal credit to ensure that it is doing the job we want it to do: making work pay and tackling poverty. We have already announced that we will improve the adequacy of the standard allowance in universal credit, and we have introduced the fair repayment rate. Alongside that, the child poverty taskforce is exploring all available levers to reduce child poverty in all four nations, including considering social security reforms.

Just a day before the new figures revealed yet another rise in child poverty in Wales, the UK Labour Government confirmed plans for billions of pounds-worth of welfare cuts, pushing tens of thousands more children into hardship. The Government tell me that the data is not robust enough to know the poverty impact on Wales, which is really not good enough. The Labour First Minister—of the Senedd, not the “Assembly”, if I may correct the hon. Member for Bristol North East (Damien Egan)—has also criticised this Government’s approach. Will the Secretary of State now listen to the First Minister of Wales, conduct a Wales-specific impact assessment and scrap these cruel measures?

I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Lady, but I am sure she would not want us to produce a potentially inaccurate assessment of the impact on Wales. What I would say—and I am sure that she agrees with this—is that the levels of poverty in Wales are unacceptable, which is a result of 14 years of the Conservative party failing to address the long-term industrial decline of many communities across Wales. I would also say to her that the best way to get people out of poverty is to get them into work, so I am sure she will welcome the recent launch of the inactivity trailblazer in Wales.

Does the Minister agree with me that the new fair repayment rate, which caps universal credit deductions at 15%, along with the actions of the Welsh Government to help more than 48,000 young people gain skills and find jobs through the young person’s guarantee scheme will help alleviate poverty in Wales, and therefore should be welcomed?

I of course agree with my hon. Friend, about both the benefits of the youth guarantee and the specific impact of the fair repayment rate, which across the country will support 1.2 million of the poorest families, including 700,000 families with children.