January in the Senedd

The Bevan Foundation’s work has, once again, shaped and informed debate in the Senedd in January.

The Bevan Foundation’s independent insights have again shaped and informed debate in the Senedd. January highlights were our evidence on the Welsh Government’s budget,  informing a report on debt and questions about Welsh benefits. 

Household debt

On the 12^th January, the Welsh Parliament debated the report of the Equality and Social Justice Committee on debt.

Chair of the Committee, Jenny Rathbone MS, opened the debate by reminding members of the Bevan Foundation’s findings on how debt was increasing. Our findings were reiterated by Altaf Hussein MS, Sioned Williams MS and Sarah Murphy MS in the debate.  In her response, Minister for Social Justice Jane Hutt MS also quoted our statistics and referred to a meeting with the Bevan Foundation shortly before Christmas.

Jenny Rathbone MS concluded her speech by saying:

I want to highlight the pivotal role of the Bevan Foundation. Its work on debt raised it up the agenda for all of us, and their initial report into the pandemic and debt in Wales certainly helped prompt the committee into undertaking this inquiry …

Welsh Government budget

As part of its scrutiny of the Welsh Government’s draft budget, Bevan Foundation Director, Victoria Winckler, gave evidence to the Senedd Finance Committee on 19^th January.  Committee members asked about the Bevan Foundation’s views about the budget overall as well as specific aspects of it including Free School Meals, expenditure on social housing and Education Maintenance Allowance.

In the committee’s next session on 21^st January, Rhianon Passmore MS asked the Minister for Finance about progress with creating a streamlined Welsh Benefits System of devolved grants and allowances, and about the Bevan Foundation’s recommendation that a distributional analysis of the draft budget be undertaken. The Minister said that work on both was underway.

In the Local Government and Housing Committee on 21^st January, Sam Rowlands MS quoted our comments about the target for social housing in questions to the Minister for Climate Change. She responded that even building 20,000 new homes would be challenging.

 And finally, in the Equality and Social Justice Committee’s scrutiny of the budget on 24^th January, the Minister for Social Justice, Jane Hutt MS, said that the Bevan Foundation’s work informed the Welsh Government’s approach to poverty:

I meet with external stakeholders as well—the Bevan Foundation, for example. I met them before Christmas, after their report that they produced about the growing impact of poverty on people’s lives just leading up to that Christmas point. Their report—’A snapshot of poverty in Winter 2021′, it was called—that was when we had the ‘heat or eat’ kind of message from them. So, we have to look outside as well as inside in terms of the architecture of Government in terms of tackling poverty.

Childcare

The Bevan Foundation was pleased that the Senedd Equality and Social Justice Committee drew on its work to inform the Committee’s recently published report on childcare.  As well as using its own evidence the Committee also drew on the experiences of groups it is working with – Action for Caerau and Ely, Together Creating Communities, South Riverside Community Development Centre and CLPW Communidade da Lingua Portuguesa Wrexham / Wales.   

Welsh Benefits 

In First Minister’s Questions on 11^th January, Peter Fox MS asked about progress with implementing a streamlined approach to devolved grants and allowances. He said ‘… the Bevan Foundation have recently stated that the current disjointed nature of these schemes means that it’s difficult for people to access all the support they are entitled to’ and then went on to ask:

First Minister, what consideration has the Welsh Government given to establishing a single point of access for benefits and support schemes administered in Wales, as well as exploring the possibility of automatically passporting universal credit claimants onto that system? Diolch.

The Bevan Foundation engages with Senedd Members from all parties on an equal basis, and also with staff of the Senedd as appropriate.