Solving Poverty in Wales: Party Leadership Candidates Special with Paul Davies AM

It’s been an extremely busy summer of Welsh politics with four parties holding leadership elections. Over the next few weeks we’ll be providing those who have put their name forward to lead their parties with an opportunity to share their vision on how they would solve poverty in Wales.

First up is Paul Davies, the Assembly Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire.

After 20 years of Labour rule, too many families in Wales remain trapped in a cycle of poverty.  While I believe there have been missed opportunities in that time to tackle poverty, we must focus on the future and the measures the next Welsh Government could take to raise living standards and make Wales a wealthier country.

One of the principal causes of poverty is worklessness and the UK Government’s welfare changes since 2010, including the benefit cap, have encouraged many people back in to work.  I agree that no one should get more in benefits than the average person earns by going out to work.  We need a Welsh Government that will work with the UK Government to better market Wales to the world, to attract investors to Wales and to work together on major infrastructure investment to create the conditions for economic growth.

Child poverty is still too high and Ministers are on course to miss their 2020 target of abolishing child poverty altogether.  Single parent families and households with three or more children are particularly at risk of falling into poverty.  I am pleased that the Welsh Government is finally catching up with England and rolling out provision of 30 hours of free childcare for three and four year olds.  This should make it easier for working parents to earn a living and have some disposable income after paying exorbitant childcare costs.

We must do more to provide affordable homes for rent and purchase.  In the last 20 years we have failed to build enough homes, fuelling house price rises and pricing many families out of their community.  As a country, we need to build more homes, but in a sustainable and environmentally-friendly way.  Under my leadership, Welsh Conservatives would fight to reinstate the right to buy, which helped so many families out of poverty in the 1980s and enabled them to purchase their own home.

One of the primary routes out of poverty is through education and gaining the skills to secure a well-paid job.  A future Welsh Government needs to make it easier for people of all ages to retrain and acquire new skills as the days of necessarily having a job or even a career for life have gone.  We need to invest in younger people and narrow the funding gap so Welsh pupils are not underfunded compared to their counterparts in England.  Successive PISA results have shown that school standards in Wales are not good enough and we need to better support schools in enabling young people to achieve their potential.  We need better intervention to support pupils from deprived backgrounds and ensure they achieve better results, making it less likely that their children will grow up in poverty.

A great chance to open up more opportunities in the Welsh economy and make Wales a more competitive and successful country comes with the devolution of further taxation powers.  While Labour leadership contenders debate how much to put up taxes by, I want a debate about cutting tax, incentivising work and encouraging job creation, giving more families the security of a regular salary.  A cut in income tax would mean more money in people’s pockets for them to spend as they choose and could actually increase revenue to invest in public services because it encourages work.

No government can solve poverty overnight, but I truly believe a low tax economy, investing in young people and creating the conditions for economic growth can transform Wales and let everyone share in the wealth of our nation.

Paul Davies is Assembly Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire, Welsh Conservatives Deputy Leader, Chief Whip and Spokesperson for Rural Affairs