Senedd Committee backs Bevan Foundation calls to implement a Welsh Benefits System

The Senedd’s Equality and Social Justice Committee publish the findings of their inquiry into debt

The Bevan Foundation have welcomed the publication of the Senedd’s Equality and Social Justice’s Committee latest report, Unsustainable: debt fuelled by the rising cost of living. The report builds on previous work undertaken by the Committee looking at the impact of the pandemic on debt and the Foundation is pleased to see its work featured prominently throughout.

The Foundation is especially pleased to see the committee support calls made by the Foundation during its oral evidence in January 2023, and in subsequent published work.

An area of the Bevan Foundation’s work that features prominently in the Committee’s report is our work on Welsh Benefits. The committee dedicates a whole subsection of the report to the need for establishing a Welsh Benefits System and draws heavily on our recent work with Policy in Practice. Among its recommendations is:

The Welsh Government should turn its vision for a Welsh benefits system into reality and mandate the implementation of a consistent, all-Wales approach to passporting households in receipt of one Welsh benefit to other benefits they are eligible for. Working with local authorities, the Centre for Digital Public Services, and others, the Welsh Government should provide an update on work in this area by the end of September 2023 with regular updates provided after that.

The Committee also echoes calls made by the Bevan Foundation for the Welsh Government to urgently address the weaknesses in its approach to reducing fuel poverty. The Committee directly quotes our Head of Policy (Poverty), Steffan Evans’ who outlines just how significant the delays to updating the Welsh Government’s Warm Homes Programme have been. The Committee goes on to say:

Given the issues raised in our Warm Homes inquiry and the eyewatering increases that many households have seen in energy bills over recent months, we are extremely disappointed and frustrated at the extent of the delays to the replacement WHP and that the Government’s response to these issues has shown a lack of urgency. The Welsh Government should clarify why the replacement WHP is taking longer than anticipated and the implications that this may have for its wider approach to tackling fuel poverty.