AM’s fears for child poverty measures

from IC Wales

by Martin Shipton, Western Mail

THE Labour AM who put eradicating child poverty at the heart of his party’s programme has launched a campaign to save the plan.

Former Deputy Social Justice Minister Huw Lewis says the One Wales coalition between his party and Plaid Cymru has downgraded the anti-poverty pledge in its draft budget. He wants the final budget to be amended.

Mr Lewis, who was recently appointed chairman of the Assembly’s expert group on child poverty in Wales, said that without clear spending plans for proposals like the wrap-around “Dignity” family support programme, many of Wales’s most vulnerable children would stay trapped in a cycle of poverty.

He said, “I’ve been continually asking colleagues in Government about the Dignity Programme since May, and I’ve not received any firm guarantees. My feeling is that if there really was money for the programme we would be singing about it from the rooftops, but the silence has been telling.

“The budget is still in draft stage, so we have three weeks to turn this around. We won many headlines and plaudits in the spring for having the courage to make eradicating poverty our defining vision in Wales. Now we reach the autumn and those claims look pretty hollow. Without changing the way we spend the public’s money, we are not going to achieve this target.”

An Assembly Government spokeswoman said, “We remain committed to the target of halving child poverty by 2010 and eradicating it entirely by 2020. The budget announced last week outlines significant extra investment across Assembly Government portfolios to tackle child poverty and increase the life chances of young people.

“Child poverty must be tackled on every front which is why we have put extra money into a range of pioneering initiatives which will have a direct bearing on reducing it.

“We are also using our new powers to reform the law in relation to vulnerable children in Wales including those children living in poverty.

“We have already announced that we will be holding a conference in the New Year to determine how we take forward the Dignity programme for children. This follows two very successful pilot On Track projects in Rhondda Cynon Taf and Bridgend. We are now evaluating the projects and how they link to our other child poverty projects like Flying Start…”