Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Good afternoon, everybody. I'd like to welcome you all—Members, Ministers and members of the public—to this meeting of the Equality and Social Justice Committee. This is our first scrutiny session in this sixth Parliament.

In accordance with Standing Order 34.19, I have determined that the public are excluded from the committee's meeting in order to protect public health. In accordance with Standing Order 34.21, notice of the decision was included in the agenda for this meeting. The public items of this meeting are being broadcast live on Senedd.tv. The meeting is bilingual and simultaneous translation from Welsh to English is available. I've received apologies from Ken Skates and Sarah Murphy, and I’d like to welcome Vikki Howells and Jack Sargeant who are substituting for them. Thank you very much, both of you.

If I drop out of the meeting for any reason, for technical reasons, in accordance with Standing Order 17.22, I propose that Vikki Howells will temporarily chair while I try to rejoin as soon as possible. Finally, could I ask Members if they’ve got any declarations of interest relevant to today’s agenda? I’ll take that as none. Thank you very much.

Welcome, Hannah Blythyn and Jane Hutt, and, for the record, I wondered if you'd just like to introduce yourselves and the officials you've brought with you.

Hello, everyone. Prynhawn da. I'm Jane Hutt, Minister for Social Justice, and I'd like to also introduce Claire Bennett, director responsible for all policies relating to social justice.

Thanks, and I'm Hannah Blythyn, Deputy Minister for Social Partnership, and with me today is Jo Salway, who's the director for social partnership and fair work.

Thank you very much indeed. Thank you both—thank you all of you. I just wanted to—. I’ll start off, and I just wanted to ask you: you say in your paper that equality and human rights is centre stage of every Welsh Government since the foundation of the National Assembly, now the Senedd, and I just wondered if you could respond to the comments made in the report that you commissioned—the 'Strengthening and advancing equality and human rights in Wales' report—which found that there had been a persistent implementation gap between the aspirations in the Government's policy and the legislation, and the actual lived experiences of people in Wales.

Well, thank you very much, and I'm really pleased to come before your committee, equality and social justice, and before Members this afternoon. I mean, that's a really important question, Chair, because we commissioned that research in order to identify how we could strengthen and advance equality and human rights after 20 years. It was commissioned back in January 2020, I think, in order for us to look at it from a policy, implementation and legislative powers, as they've grown, perspective. What was really important was that we set up a steering group for stakeholders and partners, brought an intersectional group, all those involved in equalities, all our fora came together to help us in terms of terms of reference and also to monitor and receive reports, as the research has been undertaken. And, as you know, I've published a statement on 26 August, welcoming the publication of that independent report commissioned by the Welsh Government. Because we needed to clarify how we can deliver and learn from the research, that central approach that we have, to ensure that equality and human rights are at the forefront of all that we do. And also, I mean, we were concerned not just in terms of looking at it as we move forward, progressing devolution, but looking at it in light of our exit from the European Union as well, which is going to have a huge impact; that was the evidence that we were getting back to the external affairs committee.

So, I think the report is extremely valuable, particularly looking at the recommendations—40 recommendations—not just for the Welsh Government, but for our Equality and Human Rights Commission, our Future Generations Commissioner for Wales and all the regulators, and we're receiving it now and considering it very carefully. It does actually, very helpfully, point the way to safeguarding and promoting equality and the human rights of people and communities in Wales, so it's going to be really valuable in helping us inform the work as we move forward in terms of strengthening equality and human rights.

So, there are many aspects to it, which I'm sure we will be considering and discussing with you as a committee, including opportunities that we can set out in our programme for government for incorporating those conventions—the UN conventions—and how it can align with our socioeconomic duty. But I'm particularly interested in what's emerging, and it is from the qualitative as well as the quantitative research that's been undertaken. They were very delayed by COVID-19 in getting out and talking to people, but they did manage to engage with those who are particularly affected by inequalities and discrimination in Wales. They reached out during the period of time of this research. But I'm particularly interested in those sections about implementation, accountability and monitoring, which are all of the issues that we continually look at, and particularly now coming altogether in our portfolio, our social justice portfolio.

But, as you've said, Jenny, we have said that equality is at the heart of our programme for government, the underpinning principle for everything that we do, very much a key part of our recovery, as the First Minister has said, and the steering group, as I mentioned, is meeting in October and we will then of course be considering the recommendations and moving forward.

Okay. So, you accept the basic assertion that there is a big gap between the aspirations and the legislation and the actual implementation.

I mean, we've always known that there's a—. How do you get to the implementation? You can monitor. What are the outcomes—not just reports on action—what are the outcomes in terms of implementing equality and human rights? So, it's very valuable, as I said, as a piece of research.

One of the things from our race equality action plan, as you will all know, is that there's been a—. What came out of a co-construction of that action plan was this very strong call for implementation. Yes, we can have all the aspirations, objectives and goals, but actually are you going to implement this strategy? Are you going to implement this plan? So, we have to look at this research—this very, very valuable research—and say, 'Well, is it going to give us a way forward; help us with the tools, the levers within our powers and what we need to do in terms of strengthening those powers to deliver?' I think it's going to be very valuable to take stock.

I'm very interested in the fact that they talk about what does 'due regard' mean. Because we managed to get due regard to equality into our very first Government of Wales legislation—that's all we could do—but how can we strengthen that? So, it's extremely valuable research. For the steering committee, who are all of the intersectional—because that's what's crucial about this, in all the plans that we're taking forward, not just race equality, obviously all of that needs to be now—all of those stakeholders and representatives will be guiding us as we move forward.

Okay. You mentioned the 'Strategic Equality Plan 2020-2024'. In your view, is that still fit for purpose or are there any plans to revisit it in light of, obviously, the pandemic in particular having highlighted the extent of the inequalities we have?

Well, clearly, the pandemic has deepened inequalities and that became very clear. As we mentioned, in the lockdown we saw the disproportionate impact of COVID on particularly black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, disabled people and women. We saw the deepening of the inequalities. So, the strategic equality plan that we've been consulting—[Inaudible.]—phase and iteration was very influenced by the impact of the pandemic and how we were responding to it.

And I think what's become more interesting is that, in terms of the strategic equality plan, we now have this sort of thematic approach. We've got these pillars, if you like, and we've got those separate but interlinked plans. I've mentioned the race equality action plan, but there's also the LGBTQ+ action plan; we've established a disability rights taskforce—many of you will have seen the 'Locked out' report from the disability equality forum—and linking to the 'Nation of Sanctuary' plan, and of course we had the 'Advancing Gender Equality in Wales Plan'. So, I think the strategic equality action plan has got to have an overarching grip on all those pillars and themes in order to ensure that it can actually deliver on specific protected characteristics, but also an intersectional approach.

What we have found from the pandemic, from the consultation and our experience, is that we need more collaboration and cross-sectoral collaboration in the way we take the themes forward, and we've got to provide the leadership for that. So, I think it's strong in terms of the need for that plan. We have to deal with entrenched inequality and I think the plan does provide a strategic vision that will have that power to make sure we deliver on those individual plans. But also, I have to say, I've also done, as you know, from the word go, from devolution, an annual report on equality and that actually does give you a bit more of a progress check on what's happening, but it's the outcomes that we're seeking in terms of the plan.

Okay. Just very briefly, lastly, because we obviously have lots of other issues we'd like to discuss with you, the report also recommends a human rights Act for Wales in this Senedd term. Is this something you intend to bring forward legislation on in this Parliament, or are you more likely to focus on the collaboration, leadership and implementation you've just been speaking about?

Well, we did commission this research in order to—. One of the big questions is, 'Do we need a human rights Bill/Act for Wales?' That was one of the driving forces behind it, and I've mentioned issues like incorporation of UN conventions, et cetera. Obviously, in terms of so much being reserved and there are devolution issues here, we have got to consider, look at the place for legislation of this kind and then look at the potential scope for it if we had a Bill in Wales and what could we achieve in terms of getting a Bill in Wales before the end of this term. But I think what's quite clear is that a Bill would at least be needed to strengthen human rights and equality, so work needs to start on the case for that, looking at the research and considering what scope and what powers we've got to deliver on it.

Okay. Thank you for that. I'd like to move us on now, and Jack Sargeant's going to start us off on the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. Jack.

Diolch yn fawr, Chair. Good afternoon, Minister and Deputy Minister, great to see you, as always. As the Chair has said, we'd like to look into the implementation of the future generations Act—a fantastic Act that, as you know, I believe in. Minister, could you set out the approach by the Welsh Government to ensure a consistent, cross-Government approach to developing policy and legislation that is in line with the Act? Perhaps you could comment on the future generations commissioner's comments, where she says there's an implementation gap between the aspiration and delivery on the ground. So, how do we go about addressing that problem and accelerating the scale of pace to deliver what the Act is there to do?

Well, thank you very much, Jack, and of course I'm so proud of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, as you are, I know, Jack. And it's what's been so interesting—and you've been here longer than some of our Members on the committee—to see how it's become more powerful in terms of influence, influence on those public bodies that have to abide by the requirements of the legislation, the sustainable development principle and well-being duties, having to affect every aspect of Welsh Government's work. I think celebrating activity also, under the agenda, has been important in recent times, because we've now got, in the last few weeks, the consultation out on national milestones and national indicators, and I do hope the committee will—I'm sure you will—ensure that people engage with that, with very strong publicity to get out and get people thinking about those milestones and updates. But I think the well-being objectives of the future generations Act, as part of our programme for government, prove how important it is, that it's central again, like equality of outcome, to our thinking and policy making.

But you make the point about implementation, again, Jack, and I know the future generations commissioner and the ways in which she is working, integrating the collaborative principles, reaching out and engaging in terms of the impact of policies, is crucial. That's why we have particularly, I think, informed and changed direction to ensure that we are speaking with, listening to, working with people with lived experience, because it cannot be academic, it can't be a tick box. Are we actually changing people's lives in terms of long-term thinking? So, I think this does link very well to the former questions about implementation, so that we don't have this gap, and I know that that's something that not just the commissioner, but all those who have responsibilities for delivering on it will certainly be having to deliver on.

I suppose, one example I'd give is that last year, just before the lockdown, we produced a diversity and inclusion strategy for public appointments, 'Reflecting Wales in Running Wales'. That's got to prove a change, and it will be about, 'Are we making a difference?' I know that we do have to ensure that it's not just about aspirations, but it's about delivery. There's a lot of good stuff about the well-being of future generations Act in the research that we've just been talking about, which I know that the future generations commissioner will want to respond to as well.

If I may come in just on that point, Jack, that you asked around developing policy and legislation that is in line with the Act. I just thought it might be easier to briefly highlight how the social partnership and public procurement (Wales) Bill we're working on at the moment actually shares a common purpose with the well-being of future generations Act in seeking to promote well-being and sustainable development in Wales. It shares those goals of a prosperous Wales, a healthier Wales, and a more equal Wales. It resonates very much with our fair work agenda that we're seeking to progress, which is very much why we've taken that decision to link the social partnership duty with the well-being duty in the well-being of future generations Act. So, requiring public bodies to engage with social partnerships is set out in the Bill. The intention is that this way of working will not only support improving public services but also enhance well-being as well as fair work.

Thank you both for that. I think there are some further questions on your social partnership Bill, you'll be pleased to know, later on.

Minister, you mentioned the Welsh Government's consultation on milestones, but within that consultation, I believe it does not list the Senedd under accountability; it only lists the future generations commissioner herself and the auditor general. Could you just tell the committee what you envisage the Senedd's role to be, but in particular this committee's role, in scrutinising the Government across all portfolios in their role in the implementation of that Act?

I'm glad I've got the opportunity to respond to that, because obviously, the Public Accounts Committee which some of you were Members of, did such important work on this, looking at the interacting roles of the Senedd and also in terms of public bodies. I mean, obviously, it's up to committees on how they scrutinise us in terms of our statutory obligations, but I think in terms of the milestones and the indicators, we were focusing on the bodies. That sort of mechanism was established by the well-being of future generations Act, and that's where in this consultation I suppose it might have looked as though it wasn't including the Senedd. But I think we need to take that on board, because your role is critical in this. It's not just this committee or the former predecessor committees; the Finance Committee and public accounts have been critical to ensure that all the Senedd can be part of that delivery of the well-being goals through the well-being of future generations Act. It's so important, particularly now, just as we move up to COP26, but also looking at the UN agenda for 2030 and the declaration of sustainable development goals. So, yes, thank you for pointing that out. We want the Senedd to be part of that very clearly, in terms of the consultation and the scrutiny of those milestones.

Thank you, Minister. Just one final question from me, Chair. We talked about some successes of the Act and the good work of the commissioner's office, but in order to continue that good work, it's key to have a really insightful role for this committee to play in terms of appointing the new future generations commissioner. So, I wondered if you could tell the committee what the process or timeline is for appointing the next future generations commissioner, and just how you would envisage this committee engaging with that search for the next future generations commissioner, as I believe it's required by the Act. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Jack, as well. I think the current term of office is February 2023 in terms of the current commissioner. It's very obviously open to a full, open and transparent public appointment process, as happened before, complying of course with the Act as well, as you say, but also, we do have the guidance on those appointments. It is a ministerial appointment, but we want to involve the committee and the Senedd throughout the appointment. It's regarded as a significant appointment. I think—[Inaudible.]—with the original appointment, so there will be a pre-appointment hearing by the committee. As I say, it wasn't in place at the former times. And, you know, we can discuss how we manage that together. But we've got a timetable under way. 

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Minister, for those answers.

Minister, before you move on, I wonder if you have a date for the Government's response to the future generations commissioner's weighty report, and the auditor general's report that went with it, and the Public Accounts Committee response to those two very large reports. I wondered if you have a date in mind, whether it's this year or moving into the following year.

These reports came out—really important reports—at a time, not just with the pandemic—well, particularly the pandemic—when we couldn't do even the scrutiny you would have wanted to do on previous committees, and also the Government response. We are responding, of course, in line with the Act. I think it would be helpful, perhaps, if I could write to you, Chair, to give you an outline of—[Inaudible.]—because of the difficult circumstances, and lots of recommendations about the best way, and talking to the commissioner about this, and the auditor general. So, we'll get back to you on that.

Okay. Thank you very much. Moving on now to the small subject of tackling poverty. Sioned Williams is going to start us off.

Diolch yn fawr, Sioned. Clearly, this is such an important issue in terms of the whole Welsh Government, not just for me as Minister, but for social justice. You've commented on one aspect, which of course has been raised across the Chamber, about free school meals, and I've mentioned in my written evidence, as you say, about that being just one example of how other departments, not just my own, have got a responsibility to look at the levers that we have to tackle poverty in terms of free school meals. Quite clearly, last week we were talking about and we were debating the cut to universal credit, which is going to be a major blow. We're seeing evidence now of what the adverse impact of that will be.

I think the crucial thing about tackling poverty, as I said, is it's a cross-Government responsibility in terms of the particular actions we can take. I think I also mentioned in my written statement some of the other responsibilities across Welsh Government that will be crucial in terms of tackling poverty: intervention in early years, our flagship Flying Start programme, but also looking at issues in terms of the prospects of young people, our new network of disabled people, people's employment champions—disability, poverty and equality—the race equality action plan, and also looking at things like gender budgeting, supporting families living in poverty. That's where, clearly, we have to also influence issues like the economic contract and digital, which delivers, of course, in terms of support for businesses.

So, we're tackling poverty at every level, whether it's health, education, economic or social. But I think it's clear that we need to bring all of these policy areas together. In fact, I'm sure Hannah might want to say something about the importance of social partnership and fair work as far as this is concerned, because that's why this new ministry for social justice is so important.

The Minister for Education and Welsh Language, Jeremy Miles, is obviously responsible for this review, and he's undertaking this review of eligibility criteria, as you say. He's got an internal working group. It's working across the Welsh Government, all ministerial portfolios, to make sure that we can inform that and align it appropriately. I understand that he will be giving us an update for the Senedd early in October within the next few weeks when the review is going to be concluded, or the timescales for the review in terms of next steps. But he's going to be giving an update on progress. I hope that's enough from me today as the Minister for Social Justice. But just to recognise, as I did in my written evidence, that this is crucial and it's a priority.

In terms of tackling poverty, as I said, it is—and you rightly recognise—a cross-Government responsibility, and particularly a responsibility in terms of tackling child poverty. We have our child poverty strategy, and I recently also announced the outcomes of the child poverty income maximisation plan, which goes into the heart of the issues around financial security in terms of tackling poverty. But I also have to say that this is something where the whole of the Welsh Government is engaged. One of the ways in which we're doing that is we're undertaking a review of legislation. We're looking at how we can use our legislative levers to have a greater impact on tackling poverty. Poverty has always been a cross-cutting theme in the budget planning process. In fact, we'll be meeting with the Minister for Finance and Local Government in the next few days to look at how themes like tackling poverty and inequality have an impact on budget making. Budget making is crucially important in terms of tackling poverty, because every Minister needs to look at what is this resource allocation, what impact that is going to have on tackling poverty. So, it's at the heart of financial decisions for the Government. 

I've had my bilateral meetings since I became Minister for Social Justice over the past few months since May, and we've discussed many of the issues that are already coming up, not just free school meals—childcare being another key issue in the meeting with Julie Morgan, looking at Flying Start. But also, we want to learn the lessons of how we can best tackle poverty as a Welsh Government, and that's why we have our Wales Centre for Public Policy. We commissioned them to undertake an international review of what works, because this is the crucial thing—it's the evidence of actually what works. There are many tackling poverty strategies, but actually what do we need? What are the key ingredients to make something work? So, we're expecting that report in October or November from the Wales Centre for Public Policy, but we know from what's coming forward, and that's including research commissioned from the London School of Economics and Political Science, for example, that it needs to have that top-level commitment from the Government in order to make it work. A lot has been done in the last year, as I've already outlined. But the plans for the race equality action plan identify quite clearly the lived experience and the evidence about inequalities faced by black, Asian and minority ethnic people. So, that is reflected in the socioeconomic report that was done, in terms of the impact of COVID, and it is part of our recommendations from 'An Anti-racist Wales'. But one of the things that came out of that report last year was that we need a race disparity unit, and we need a disability data unit. We need more evidence at the centre of Government. So, our equality data unit, which is in my written statement, I think is also going to take us forward.

So, we now need to take on board—. As we did with the Swansea research, we need to take on board research findings. We need to look at all of the work that we're doing and see what's the best way to move forward in terms of tackling poverty. What I have said, when I came into this ministerial role, is that this isn't just about tackling poverty. I always say it's about tackling poverty and inequality. It's the inequalities that are driving the poverty. We got the socioeconomic duty enacted here in Wales, and your predecessors got that through on the last day of term. It's crucially important, as well as addressing the protected characteristics as well. It's a tackling poverty and inequality direction that I want to take, and it's really helpful to have the committee's views on that.

That's a crucially important point, because we can discuss how we tackle poverty and strategies and plans, but actually we know that there is more we can do here and now. We talked about the discretionary assistance fund last week and how we need to extend it and ensure the flexibilities are there to make sure that that is there for people who are in need. But you're absolutely right about the need to passport, to make things simpler. The income maximisation plan that we carried out actually did result in hundreds of thousands of pounds getting to families, through targeting take-up campaigns, and particularly through our single advice fund, which we're funding, where they have to report on the ways in which they're reaching out. But the passporting, of course, requires also engagement with local authorities, and also the Department for Work and Pensions. So, again, it's guidance, it's toolkits. We're at that stage now, in terms of pressing this forward. But it's certainly something that we would want to look at in terms of how we could strengthen that. The duty of course, the socioeconomic duty, might help us in that direction. It's early days, but there's a huge amount of work and willingness to deliver on the socioeconomic duty. And I think that that will help particularly our partners in local government specifically in terms of public bodies, and all the other Welsh public bodies to look at all their decisions in relation to socioeconomic duty. Because there's a lot that they can do in terms of process in reaching out to people if they do actually consider—as they have to under a duty now—socioeconomic impact. So, I hope that that will help in terms of that kind of direction, a stronger direction in terms of passporting benefits.

Okay. Before I bring in Jane Dodds, I just wonder if I could follow up with whether the success of the pilot programmes on income maximisation means that you're now planning to mainstream those across Wales.

It's been one of the most successful schemes or initiatives that we've undertaken in terms of tackling child poverty. The pilots have been very valuable and we're looking at the impact of the pilots, so I certainly hope that we will, in the next phase of this, be able to share those across Wales.

Thank you. Jane.

So, thank you so much for this opportunity. I do apologise for being late for this very important meeting. One of the themes that we felt that we wanted to look at from our first meeting was around the effects of poverty on women. And I just really wanted to ask a couple of points if I may, Minister and Deputy Minister, around that. The first relates to a report in 2019 from Chwarae Teg and the Bevan Foundation, 'Trapped: Poverty Amongst Women in Wales Today'. The biggest ask of that report was a cross-Government strategy to tackle poverty in women, and I just wondered whether you had managed to review that and think about what that cross-Government strategy would be. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Jane, and great to see you as well on this committee, and I welcome your scrutiny as well. 

Quite clearly, in terms of gender, the fact that there has been a gender equality review, which was before we got to our race equality action plans and the other plans that are coming forward now, was a very, very important review in terms of tackling issues in relation to advancing gender equality in Wales—a very significant piece of work. Actually, it's referred to in the 'Strengthening and advancing equality and human rights in Wales' research in a very supportive way. So, there are quite a lot of recommendations there that we have to deliver, which include things that Hannah is responsible for in terms of fairer work for women, but obviously tackling barriers as well as lack of childcare, the gender pay gap as well, which is why we have looked at all of those kinds of levers in terms of tackling gender pay and the milestones as well for the future generations, but also gender budgeting, which has been important.

One of things that hasn't been mentioned yet—and I'm sure that the committee will be looking at—is the fact that we are looking at public sector equality duties. We've got legislation; we've had an equal pay Act forever, haven't we? It's are we actually able to implement that legislation and those duties. And we were reviewing the Welsh-specific equality duties, but unfortunately, the pandemic came along and that work was paused, but we're certainly picking that up again, and I met with the Equality and Human Rights Commission last week and indeed, the Women's Equality Network to discuss these issues.

So, I think it goes back, Jane—I'm not sure if you were here earlier on when we talked about the role of the strategic equality plan, which is an overarching plan under which all of the pillars of equality and protected characteristics as well as the socioeconomic duty rest to be co-ordinated. Because also, it's very intersectional now, and I think we've got to take that into account as we look at the impact on black, Asian and minority ethnic women, disabled women, LGBTQ+ women. We've got to look at it intersectionally as well. But I hope you will be pleased to hear and read about the new unit that we're setting up in Welsh Government to look at equality data; it does include race and disability and, obviously, gender equality as well to help inform us. But we are—. The gender equality review is clearly, in terms of taking forward, a key part of that bigger equality plan. 

Thank you. If I may ask about two other quick issues as well, Minister. In the report, and in other reports, the issue around childcare, and the link with women experiencing poverty, and experiencing debt, has been really prominent. And I just really wondered what position the Welsh Government was taking in looking at, in terms of their recommendation, which is around seamless, universal free childcare provision for children from nine months up to school age. I just really wondered what perspectives there were around childcare. 

Well, this is again where the sorts of powers and responsibilities of other Ministers are so crucial in terms of tackling poverty, the cross-government tackling poverty responsibilities. And one of the first meetings, the bilaterals I had, was with Julie Morgan, because it was very clear to us, as you can imagine from years of working around these issues, that we need to ensure that we are tackling the barrier particularly for women, parents and women in work, returning to work, and therefore looking at the way in which—and in the programme for government—looking at the ways in which we can support childcare and the childcare offer; it's been crucially important as well. It is very important that we're looking at women returning to work through training and education, but also, obviously looking at ways in which we can support childcare, like extending the business rates exemption for childcare settings. It was really important that we were the only country at one stage providing free childcare for key workers, many of whom, of course, were for women in terms of their childcare needs. 

But also, I think, I'd like to make the connection between not just tackling provision of childcare and tackling childcare in terms of equalities and opportunities for women, but it is crucially important in terms of tackling poverty and inequality. If we can't reach out—. And you all know the great impact of Flying Start. If you reach out to the most disadvantaged communities, families and children, you can really make an impact with investment in the early years. So, I think childcare is obviously a key passionate, for me, policy, and we have to pursue ways in which we can improve the availability of childcare, and also that support for the early years. And I think that's where, again, committees have looked at this in the past, and we need to understand how we can address this, because it's crucial, and thank you for the question. 

Thank you. Just one very last point. It won't be very often that I will say this, but I was really pleasantly surprised at the Scottish National Party and their programme for government putting forward a women's budget, which obviously is going to be designed and aimed at tackling poverty in women. And I just really wondered whether there had been thought within the Welsh Government to a women's budget. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn. 

We've had a gender budgeting pilot with personal learning accounts. This was one of the recommendations that came out of the gender equality review, and, in fact, it's the responsibility of the finance Minister to take that forward and assess its outcomes. I think women's budgeting is a part of the ways in which we need to look at budgeting more creatively in relation to tackling inequalities, and particularly in relation to women. I think I could come back to you perhaps, Chair, on the outcomes or the progress with the gender budgeting, because, in a sense, that was the starting point of saying, 'Well, can we progress this?' I would say also, though, that this comes back to how we can be intersectional as well, because obviously we revealed so much disproportional impact not just of coronavirus, but of entrenched inequalities anyway. So, it's a good opportunity to bring it into the strategic equality plan.

Thank you very much. If we can move on, Altaf Hussain wanted to ask a question here. Altaf.

Thank you very much. I have two small questions, about, first, what works in tackling poverty, if you may allow me, Chair—is that all right?

Yes, go ahead.

Okay. Minister, thank you very much. Could you kindly tell me what specific steps are you taking to ensure that economic renewal focuses first and foremost on those communities that are struggling the most? And the second question is: what economic measures will you call for to boost job prospects in those communities where there has been little economic improvement? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Altaf Hussain. These are key questions, which very much link to our employability and skills programmes, and so, again, a very early meeting I had bilaterally with the Minister for Economy, Vaughan Gething, was about the employability programme and what the impact of that was going to be in terms of skills development and opportunities. But it's very much also linked to the foundational economy objectives and with Better Jobs Closer to Home. I'd like to bring in Hannah, if Hannah would like to say anything at this point in terms of opportunities for fair work and social partnership. Because what's great about having social partnership and fair work in the social justice ministry is that we can look at these issues and then influence not just the whole of the Welsh Government in the economic aspects, but also look at it from the perspective of social partnership, the real living wage, fair work, et cetera. But, Hannah, did you want to say anything?

Thanks, Jane, just briefly, if I may, and, Altaf, thanks for the questions. Just to say more broadly that this position I have now within this portfolio is a new position, and what it does enable us—as you know, I'm the Deputy Minister for Social Partnership, leading on social partnership, fair work, living wage—and what it does give us is that impetus to work across Government, so to work closely, particularly with my colleague the Minister for Economy, to ensure that fair work and the things that you raise are central to our economic recovery and our plans as part of that, and actually to do that by working in partnership. Much of that was set out in the social partnership Bill, about actually how we continue our work to realising the Fair Work Commission's recommendations in a range of areas.

That's fine. Altaf, can we come back to your other question? We've sort of entered into the whole issue of fair work, so I suggest we deal with that, and then I'll come back to you on your other question. Is that all right?

All right .Yes.

Vikki, I know you had some questions on this, and as Hannah's already started laying out her stall, can I suggest to you that you pick that one up now?

Thank you very much, Chair, and good afternoon, Minister and Deputy Minister. I've got a range of questions around fair work, social partnership and also the voluntary sector, so parts will be relevant to each of you. So, firstly, focusing on the Welsh Government's priorities for making workplaces fairer, safer and better for all, I'd like to understand what progress the Welsh Government has made in implementing the recommendations of the previous Senedd's Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee in relation to parenting and employment.

Maybe I need to come in on that one, before we go on to—[Inaudible.]. I probably have begun to answer some of those points, in terms of those recommendations, but, of course, there were recommendations that related to childcare, particularly in terms of that particular committee report. And I think that what was important—. Many times—for new Members—the Welsh Government responds to reports and accepts things in principle; sometimes they aren't accepted. Hopefully, you always want them to be accepted in full. But I think the important thing is—. I've made some comments already about how we have responded to those issues that particularly came up about parenting and childcare. 

I think that what's important is how the childcare offer, I just want to say, has been evaluated, and I think you have seen those evaluations—the committee has certainly seen them; the last one, I think, was in March of this year—and how the childcare offer supported working parents particularly and work-life balance issues. But I think it's also about income levels for parents and linking that to the issues and ways in which we can look at our wider support, and the sector itself, in terms of out-of-school care, has been so badly affected by the pandemic. So, I think, also, what's going to happen is that local authorities have got responsibility here. Over the summer there were a lot of play schemes and play opportunities, as well as out-of-school childcare. But it is the childcare sector, I think, is what's come through as crucially important as well—employing nearly 17,000 people, as well as actually supporting parents with the costs of childcare. 

Thank you, Minister. My next question is about the Fair Work Commission's recommendations, and I'd like to explore which of those the Welsh Government will prioritise when implementing at the start of this Senedd and which ones would be delivered over the longer term.

Thanks, Vikki. And, I think, Chair, if I pick that point up around the Fair Work Commission's recommendations, a key priority at the outset of this term is going to be the social partnership and public procurement Bill, and one of the six key priority recommendations of the Fair Work Commission was to use those commission findings to inform the Bill, which we have done throughout the consultation, and continue to do so. I think, more broadly, we're going to actually, alongside that, look at how we refine and actually maximise our social partnership approach in Wales, and also how we we maximise those levers we do have at our devolved disposal, so actually how we use potentially the public purse. We already do that through things like our economic contract, but how we can perhaps look at more that we can do in that space, and also how we improve, perhaps, well-being and working practice in areas that are non-devolved, so some of the work we've done previously in the previous Senedd term around our rights and responsibilities campaign, and promoting the rights for workers and the responsibilities for businesses and employers, but also around things like—. We've formally established the health and safety forums—so, actually, areas that are non-devolved but actually have an impact on workplaces in Wales, how we extend our influence in those areas to make a difference within workplaces in Wales. 

I think one of the things that's important to point out around those recommendations is that we're very much still committed to realising those recommendations in the Fair Work Commission's report, but I'm sure Members would agree that work has changed significantly in ways we perhaps didn't foresee prior to the pandemic, whether that's through the rise of remote working, and obviously there are challenges there in terms of balances and making it work for people, but those are opportunities we didn't know were there before and that we realised a bit more. So, I think, as we look forward beyond those initial priorities, we need to do a piece of work looking actually at what the future of fair work looks like now post pandemic and actually how we can be more agile and responsive to that.

So, I think I mentioned it in my statement last week in the Senedd, but we've already set up the work of the social care fair work forum, which is the key driver to how we implement that commitment to a living wage for care workers. There are other sectors we've spoken about prior to the pandemic, but the pandemic brought that into an even stronger focus, such as retail and hospitality. We are setting up a retail forum in the first instance, which is due to meet imminently, to actually see how we can work cross-sector to look not just around fair work and those sorts of opportunities, but at the sustainability of these sectors as a whole.

Thank you, Deputy Minister. That’s really interesting and useful. The social partnership and public procurement Bill is, obviously, going to be a key piece of legislation this Senedd term. Would you be able to give us any idea of when the Welsh Government intends to introduce that Bill, and whether you’re planning to make any changes to the draft Bill as well?

Thanks, Vikki. So, the First Minister’s already announced that the social partnership and public procurement (Wales) Bill would be a first-year Bill in this Senedd term, so we are currently planning to introduce the Bill during spring 2022. As I said, I did update the Senedd with an oral statement around the progress of the development of the Bill following on from a consultation and the publication of the summary responses in July.

The Bill at the moment is broadly consistent with the case for change and the proposals outlined in the draft Bill as part of the consultation during the summer period and before, and we will continue to do that. We’ve been working with those key social partners and also wider stakeholders to continue to take forward the Bill in partnership. I think the one point I would perhaps make at this point to committee is that there were a couple of open questions in that consultation itself, predominantly around fair work and the definition of fair work and, as I said in the statement, we made clear it’s our intention to adopt the Fair Work Commission’s definition of fair work on the face of the Bill.

Thank you very much. My final question is about the voluntary sector. So, clearly, the previous Senedd’s Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee did a really important piece of work on the voluntary sector. I’d just like to understand, Minister, what progress the Welsh Government has made in implementing the recommendations made.

Thank you very much, Vikki. This is crucial because of the role that the voluntary sector played during the pandemic, and that inquiry that was undertaken by the committee was so important. I think what has been great, in terms of the response, is that we have got the third sector partnership council—they got stuck in straight away—and we were able to quickly move, in terms of giving funding out to the Third Sector Support Wales team. In 2021-22 we’ve already been able to increase the support for Third Sector Support Wales by £1.6 million. We’ve got a new round of the third sector resilience fund as well. We’ve got quite a lot of interest in that.

But also we’ve appointed the Wales Council for Voluntary Action to establish a community asset loan fund, and that’s going to have financial support. We’ve put a lot more money into the community facilities programme, which I’m sure some in your constituencies will have benefited from—51 community projects have benefited. Some of those we’ve helped have looked at not just the impact of COVID-19, but flooding as well, in terms of criteria for the community facilities programme. We’ve got a very strong third sector partnership council recovery group, who’ve been advising us on what they need, as well as responding to the report of the committee, and that’s where they’ve been working very closely with Wales co-op, lots of looking at digital issues, looking at volunteering, particularly. So, we’ve got an extra £1 million to support volunteering under the volunteering Wales grant as well. So, quite a few of those responses that we’ve been able to deliver come from the former committee’s report recommendations.

That’s great. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Minister. I wonder if I could now go back to Altaf Hussain, because I know you had a question about a pilot of a universal basic income.

Thank you very much, Chair. Minister your paper says we’re developing options for a basic income pilot involving people leaving care, focused on how the pilot could be designed to support those in greatest need. The paper also states that

'We have actively engaged with countries that have piloted approaches to basic income, in order to learn lessons and embed this learning into the proposed pilot.'

Now, my question is: the Minister has now dropped the term 'universal', because this is a very different pilot to the one you originally wanted. Can the Minister confirm that any measurement of this pilot will only be relevant to those people leaving care and will have little value in demonstrating whether a universal basic income scheme would work? Minister.

Thank you very much, Altaf. And, of course, we set out with a commitment to look at and pilot a basic income scheme. And very, very early on, I think, in terms of making a statement, I made a ministerial statement and answered questions about it, and said that we had a lot of complex work to undertake to design the pilot, to look at what would be the most effective way of undertaking it, and looking at timelines, and also looking at what's happened in other countries, as you've said, Altaf, looking with, particularly, colleagues, officials, from Scotland, who'd already undertaken work in this area. So, right from the word 'go', we were looking at ways in which we could support a particular cohort, and that cohort was targeting the pilot on care leavers in Wales. So, we are looking now at how we take this forward, and I think what's very important is that this next phase is moving into actually engaging with those who might most be affected by this pilot.

Now, we do actually have a senior official here, Claire Bennett, who's been our key official taking forward the work to get this pilot under way. So, I think it might be helpful to have just a word from Claire rather than a Minister, Chair, on this point, because she's leading this team.

Thank you, Minister, and, yes, the work on scoping the pilot is developing. We have spoken with a range, as you said, of different countries who've piloted different approaches. I think one of the things we learnt really quickly and is captured in a number of the pieces of work that have been done, for example, by Public Health Wales and others, and the future generations commissioner, is there are lots of different models. There's no single best approach to undertaking basic income, and some of it depends on your purpose. We've had some really interesting conversations with colleagues in California who've developed a scheme focused on care leavers there and had some really interesting learning from their experience that we're building into developing the pilot. And I think whilst the focus is on care leavers and that will give us, I suppose, a lot of really useful learning about improving circumstances for care leavers, I think it will still give us lessons for basic income as a concept in testing out how it will operate and doing so within the constraints of the devolution settlement. At the end of the day, the Welsh Government isn't in control of the welfare system or the taxation system, and understanding those interactions and being able to actually deliver something rather than have a theoretical thing that we're not able to deliver, I think is one of the things that we're, I suppose, balancing in undertaking the design work.

Altaf, I know that your question has provoked interest from several Members. Had you—?

I've a few questions more and I can give you the chance to ask those questions.

Well, why don't we bring in other Members first? Jack actually indicated initially to me, and then Jane and then Sioned.

Okay.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Minister, and Claire as well. I'm proud to have brought this to the Senedd Chamber in the last Senedd to discuss a pilot, and I'm pleased that it went through. And I welcome the Government's ambition to do the pilot it talks about for care leavers. I think it's a step forward, isn't it, and I think we should recognise that progress and put that progress on the record. I do, however, still think there's room and scope for looking how further we can take any proposed pilot. I agree with Claire that it has to be deliverable in our current devolution settlement, but I'm just interested, really, as part of the work you're doing, are you looking further—? The options on the table—will it be solely for a care leavers pilot? Is there room for looking beyond that under the remit of the Welsh Government as well? Because I think the Minister will be aware there is a current petition going through the process, and I'll say as Chair of the Petitions Committee that the team are relatively interested in that particular petition. So, I'm just wondering: are there options being explored further than just, currently, a care leavers pilot? Are we going through that, and when is it possible that you might be able to tell the Senedd further details? Because I believe, in your paper, Minister, you say that you and your officials will meet with and brief the First Minister, who I know is extremely keen on these ideas. Do you have an indication of a timescale for that?

Thank you very much, Jack; I remember the debate well and how you brought this to the Senedd. I just wanted to go back to, in a sense, Altaf's question about the pilot, because this is about how we do alleviate poverty—is this one of the levers, one of the routes to alleviating poverty—to look to test a pilot that is basic income, and that's what it is: basic income as a concept for tackling poverty. But it's also—. And part of that way in which you're tackling poverty is about giving people more control over their lives and having a positive impact on their mental health and well-being and their whole view of themselves and their circumstances. So, it's a basic—. It's a guaranteed basic income. Obviously, therefore, we have to look at how we can manage this—as you said, Jack, and in response to Claire earlier on—financially, in terms of legislation and powers. So, it's about testing a version of basic income in Wales. 

I just want to quickly say that I'm due to give a—. I have met with the First Minister at only just the end of last week about this. We updated, with Claire and other officials, and I will be making a statement—I don't know, Claire, whether we can say when, but—very shortly, because I know people and stakeholders and Senedd Members want to know where we are on this, so it is planned for me to make a statement in the very near future.

Claire. Sorry, I beg your—. I'll come back to you, Claire. Jane.

Well, thank you very much; thank you so much for a second opportunity. When somebody mentions universal basic income, I can't help myself, I'm afraid. It's tied in with what Jack said, which is trying, if we may, to pin you down a little bit more on the timescales. It might be that protocol doesn't allow you to say what's in your ministerial statement, but I just wondered if that was part of the ministerial statement coming up—that is, the timescales. Because it seems we've been talking about it quite a lot, and it is really a badge of pride for, I feel, Welsh Labour, and it would be great to move it on.

I think my second point is that there is an absolute sea—a morass—of evidence out there around how it does tackle poverty, including the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration project in California, and so I'm just wondering what other evidence you may be looking for. And, again, that may be within your ministerial statements next week. Thank you so much—diolch yn fawr iawn.

Diolch yn fawr, Jane. It will give—. The statement will give as much detail as possible in terms of timescales and scoping of this pilot, and costings. We're obviously looking at every bit of evidence we can get. We've talked about it, Jane, as well, haven't we, just on a one to one. We know your commitment to this, and you've made that so clear from day one in the Senedd. But, clearly, we are also—. There's a lot of interest in what we might be doing in Wales, so lots of people are already giving us evidence. Actually, Claire mentioned the report from Public Health Wales that came out before the summer; I thought that was an incredibly useful document. Maybe the Clerk or Chair, you could make sure that's circulated to Members, because it covered the whole range of purpose, objectives, experience worldwide et cetera. I thought it was very valuable. As quickly as possible and as much as possible, Jane—soon.

Very good. Sioned, you wanted to come in.

Well, that ended up with a very big question, Sioned, but because we've certainly engaged with Scottish colleagues at official level, I know Claire and officials have been looking—. Of course, they've moved on to looking at the minimum income guarantee, and so we're working very much hand in glove with Scotland to see where they're going and where they've come from in terms of the work that they undertook. There's a huge issue here about what the UK Government—even with our little pilot, what we can achieve with our UK Government, with the Department for Work and Pensions. So, I hope that, Altaf, you will at least help us in terms of opening the doors, because, just to move it at all, we need to have some co-operation from the UK Government to make progress on this.

Obviously, this does open it up—you've opened up a much bigger question about devolution of welfare, which we touched on last week in the debate on universal credit. I think I could say—not much more, of course, briefly, today than I said in answer to the debate before—that we are, obviously, looking now—. I welcomed the report from the predecessor committee on benefits in Wales and options for better delivery. We're looking at the recommendations, continuing to explore how further devolution of the administration of the benefits system would improve outcomes for people in Wales. So, this is going to be for much debate as we move forward. That's it at this stage, Jenny, or we could go on for a long time on this.

No, I think we haven't got time to go on, but, Altaf, did you want to just come back?

Oh, yes. Thank you very much. Great. Now, just two short questions: how many care leavers will be involved in this pilot and how much will the Government seek to spend in providing a basic income? I can come to the second question later, after this one. 

Well, I think, Altaf, you will get a lot more information when I make my statement covering those points.

Right. Okay. Now, the second point, then, is that the Minister's paper says that the Government has

'actively engaged with countries that have piloted approaches to basic income'.

So, can the Minister explain which countries have been engaged and have any of them piloted a limited basic income on one population group, or were they all countries whose schemes were universal?

Thank you very much, Altaf. Well, I know Claire mentioned—and indeed, Jane—California; there's the Finnish project. There are projects all over the world, actually, and, again, we would want to give that context, I think, in my statement. Rather than going into all the detail, I think, probably—. Unless Claire feels she desperately wants to say anything, I think, probably at this stage, it's very much that in due course you will get much more information. And then with a statement you can scrutinise me much more fully than you can when you've got a lot of topics this afternoon to cover. 

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Claire, can you just clarify that the statement's going to be made next week, so that we're all preparing for that, or—?

It won't be next week, or at least it's not scheduled yet to be next week—soonish.

And Santa Clara in California is a cohort-specific pilot, focused actually on the equivalent of care leavers in the States. So, it has been, and the team met directly with the team delivering that. So, we have been able to speak with people who are delivering programmes that are targeted as well as universal, universal projects, also. 

Okay. Thank you for that. And further questions we can pick up when the Minister makes her statement in the Senedd. 

We've got 10 minutes left, and I just want to briefly cover I think three more topics. First of all, Minister, a subject close to both our hearts, which is the long-awaited residential women's centre in Wales so that we're not having to send female offenders to England. Obviously, the pandemic has disrupted a lot of activities, but I understand UK Government has yet to secure a site for this residential women's centre. Could you confirm whether that's the case, and what could we do to assist them? 

Thank you very much, Chair. Well, this has been my question ever since May, since the election: how are we going to progress with securing the women's residential centre? What has been good is that the people who are responsible for actually working with local authorities, because obviously we've got to work with our partners—Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service are working directly now with all the local authorities. They were meeting every local authority in the south Wales area where the pilot's going to be over the summer months. Also, there's a public estate property lead director in the Welsh Government; registered social landlords, who have a lot of property, they're always having a search. So, everybody is now looking at appropriate property and estate for the women's residential centre. So, it's helpful you've asked this question today, because it will become public and I will then seek an update on the progress with securing this women's residential centre. 

I think what's really important, as Jenny has said, is that we have a situation when I have been to the prisons outside Wales—and some of the new Members may wish to visit—where women are imprisoned, often, for very minor offences, linked to poverty, linked to what's happened to their lives, and it is totally inappropriate. A women's residential centre will be a place where women would be able to, through a very pioneering female offending blueprint that we're taking forward, and we're doing it in partnership with the Ministry of Justice, where women can have a chance to recover, look forward and actually make progress in their lives, often with their families. So, we just do want this to happen and to work, and thank you for asking the question.

Okay. Thank you, we'll come back to that another day. Jack wanted to ask a question. 

Thank you, Chair. Minister, there have been some quite serious concerns around women's public safety. And I'll state for the record, Chair, as I'm wearing my ribbon, I'm a White Ribbon ambassador, and I think more men should certainly do that. But I just wanted to know, Minister, whether you think the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015 is sufficient enough in our current time to protect women in public places. And perhaps you could give a few examples of what the Welsh Government is doing to address these serious concerns people have. 

Well, thank you very much, Jack, for the question and for the White Ribbon; it reminds us that it's only a few weeks until the day when we all are together with our White Ribbons, the elimination of violence international day where we unite. And to our new Members, again, this is really important, across parties, and led by the men and the male ambassadors, like Jack. And what we have done, in terms of our legislation, the violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence legislation is that we've said that it's got to extend now to protect women in public places. We can do that, because we have to have a national strategy. And we're actually now into the next—it's five years old, that Act—term of five years of VAWDASV. It's in our programme for government that we say that we're tackling VAWDASV in the workplace and in the street as well as the home to make Wales the safest place in Europe to be a woman.

So, we've now got a working group of those wider organisations. They are going to be meeting throughout the year to protect women in public places. I would say that includes transport, and also of course with the work that is being undertaken with Jeremy Miles, the school learning settings. This has now got to be influencing every aspect of life for women and girls. So, actually, I was having a meeting last week—we had that campaign, do you remember: 'Home shouldn't be a place of fear', which is still hugely relevant to women's lives in the home and domestic abuse. But we're actually going to expand the campaign to include safety in public, in the workplace and on the street.

Thank you for that, Minister. I think this committee will want to look at that, but I'll certainly be looking at that outside the committee as well. I look forward to working with you.

Thanks. Sioned, do you want to come in quickly, because I know Altaf's got another question?

Thank you. I will certainly take that back to my next meeting with the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language. Absolutely critical, and I think many of us have got daughters who are either on school buses or walking, and still are. This is crucially important.

Thank you. Altaf, you wanted to come in on something else.

Thank you very much, Chair. Minister, a few questions, really. Number one is about the resettlement of Afghans here in the UK and in Wales, particularly. Are you going to bring and discuss Afghan resettlement in the Senedd? That is one question. Number two is: you have stated that you are working to identify accommodation for those who can settle here. Can you update us on the number of people needing homes, and what mix of accommodation you have been able to secure? Because they're all linked, if you could also update us, please, on what support services will be needed to provide at least in the short term ongoing advice to help people to settle. It won't be good enough to house people and then walk away. Thank you, Minister.

Thank you very much, Altaf. You know I made a statement on Tuesday in the Senedd and you responded to it as did other colleagues here today. I'm getting daily updates on this, and I think my next step will be a written statement, probably over the next few days. It's still very much dependent on how the Home Office works with us and also the department for community, housing and local government, so it's where inter-governmental relations are critically important, and local authorities in Wales are responding—they're looking for property. But I'll give you an update, Chair, and I'll write to you before a written statement, if that's appropriate, if that would be helpful.

And I wonder, Chair, if I could possibly apologise; earlier on, I didn't realise that actually, I've just been informed that I am making a statement on 5 October, an oral statement on the Welsh Government's response to the Public Accounts Committee report on the well-being of future generations Act. So, apologies I didn't have that at my fingertips earlier on, but I thought I'd just get that in before the end of the meeting. 

Thank you, that's extremely helpful. That neatly brings us to the end of this session, and I thank you and Hannah Blythyn for your contributions, and also those of your officials. You will obviously be sent a transcript of this discussion, and obviously it's really important that you read it to make sure that people haven't misheard or misinterpreted what you've said. So, thank you very much indeed for covering such a wide-ranging brief, but I think very useful as a scene-setting for our work going forward. So, thank you very much indeed.

Thank you. 

Thank you. 

So, I think I just want to move us into private session briefly, and I just wondered if the person who's managing the broadcasting can tell us when we're no longer in public session. 

Welcome back to the second scrutiny session of the Equality and Social Justice Committee, and I'm very pleased to welcome our three witnesses who are opening our inquiry into the impact of debt from the pandemic. So, welcome to Gwennan Hardy, Peter Tutton and Jason Roberts. If you would like to say who you are as and when you make your opening remarks. You don't need to all answer all the questions, but if you want to add to whatever a colleague has said, please just raise your hand either electronically or just wave at me and I'll bring you in. Okay.

So, I wanted to start off by thanking you for the written evidence that Citizens Advice and StepChange have submitted, which we've all read, and, interestingly, you both highlight there was actually a decrease in demand for debt advice at the start of the pandemic. And I just wondered if you could indicate whether that has changed at all over the more recent months, as the moratoriums on evictions and the pause on the use of bailiffs are now coming to end, and how you think that's going to influence your demand for services going forward. Jason, do you want to start, or Peter, one of you? Jason.

Peter, do you want to go first?

Okay then, if it's all right. 

Yes—[Inaudible.]—submitted some information as well.

Okay, thank you. It's a really good question. So, where we are at the moment, numbers are starting to increase again, but they're still somewhat down on where they were before COVID struck. So, to give an example, before COVID in 2019 we had about 630,000, as it were, new contacts—people who were dipping their toe in, seeking advice—and about 300,000 we gave full debt advice to. In 2020, that was about 500,000 and 200,000 for full debt advice. It'll be about the same this year, possibly a little bit lower, but the numbers are now starting to creep up. So, the numbers are still lower. Debt advice is very seasonal. You get huge quarter 1 demand in debt advice and that was lower, so that conditions the year, but the numbers are starting to go up. We understand, kind of—. It's hard to predict exactly what will happen next. We know that various support is coming to an end around the end of the month, both various bits of COVID support and things like the universal credit £20 uplift.

We know, as Citizens Advice pointed out in their evidence, there are lots of other things going on, so the rising fuel prices, which have been talked about a lot today, and the rise in the energy cap. There are a few things that will put households under financial pressure. So, we would expect to see numbers starting to increase perhaps more strongly in Q1 2022 next year. The impact in the autumn, if the people who are currently on furlough go into unemployment, may lead to an increase in immediate debt advice demand. Usually, there's a lag, so there's a lag between people suffering an income shock and seeking debt advice that can be quite substantial. So, half our clients say that they were worried about debt for a year or more before seeking advice, and that's where people might try and manage by doing things like using credit, and one of the things we've seen in the pandemic is millions of people using credit to make ends meet, which is a good strategy in the short term, but if it carries on into the long term it makes your chances of falling into debt very much larger. So, we might see this bulge in the beginning of next year. People may, if there's an impact in the autumn, struggle on until Christmas and then come for debt advice in the new year. But at the moment the numbers are still lower than we would normally expect. We can think a little bit about why that is. The important thing is not that they haven't grown because of a lag; they're actually lower, so some things have happened in COVID that have reduced some people's vulnerability to debt. At the same time, as we'll talk about, we know a huge number of households—millions of households—suffered a negative economic shock. So, there's something complex going on there.

Thank you, Peter, for that initial analysis of where we're at from StepChange's point of view. Jason, is there anything you want to add from a Citizens Advice point of view?

Well, from the Speakeasy Law Centre, where we're at—

Oh, I'm sorry, I beg your pardon.

That's okay, that's all right. I think we have a—. Because we cover just Cardiff, the demographic of our clients is generally people who have been on benefits. Therefore, because of this—. Apart from the increase, the £20-a-week uplift, what I'm finding as the debt adviser here is that people are now realising that this £20 a week is going to be coming to an end and there's that panic. We have definitely seen a rise in referrals of clients to us that are looking at—. 'Insolvency' is probably the best way to make a comment on it, because there is no income there to pay. So, the debt advice that we have here, it's generally when we're looking at insolvency for clients, and that has seemed to have increased in the last couple of months.

Thank you, Jason. Gwennan, apologies. What's the perspective from Citizens Advice?

Yes. So, I think fairly similar to what Peter has just said. Overall numbers have been down during the pandemic. We're starting to see them come up. They're still slightly below what we had pre pandemic, but they are starting to rise again. There are two areas where we saw more people in the first quarter of this year than we did pre pandemic, and that's around fuel debts and rent arrears for people in the private rented sector. So, those are two areas where we're helping more people at the moment.

In terms of what we're expecting in the future, again, as Peter said, I think we're very aware that there are going to be a lot more challenges coming in the autumn, particularly for a lot of the people that we help, in terms of the cut to universal credit and tax credits, and rising energy prices, and some uncertainty around what the impact of the end of furlough might be. So, it's a really worrying time for people, and we're seeing that in some of the statistics from people looking at our website, where we're seeing more people looking at our debt and money pages. But, yes, as Peter said, I think people don't tend to come to us immediately when they start to get into financial difficulty or where they have a shock, so it might be that it takes some time for those kinds of debt problems to manifest.

Okay. We'll come back to some of the issues you've all raised, but just before we move on, the Welsh Government increased funding for the single advice fund by £1.1 million in this financial year, so what's your assessment of the level of funding being sufficient to meet demand?

Reflecting on the past year, I think we helped roughly—. Despite the drop in the number of people coming to us for help with debts, we helped roughly the same number of people, I think, during the pandemic as we had previously. And a lot of that was to do with benefits issues and employment issues, particularly right at the start of that pandemic when we saw a really big surge in people needing advice. I think in those first three months, there was a huge amount of uncertainty.

I think it's difficult to say in terms of meeting demand. I think there are always more people we could be helping and we know that there are lots of challenges coming up where there's quite a degree of uncertainty, really, about what these trends are going to look like. And as Peter said, it's quite a complex picture, in that we know that some people's circumstances have kind of improved, so it's been a huge disruption, I guess, to household finances. I think it's something that we want to monitor, particularly as the furlough scheme comes to an end, and as some of these debt problems take time to manifest, I think it's something we'd have to monitor as we go on.

Okay. I think the issue is that I'm sure that you'll always be able to do more with more money. Local authorities themselves are one of the organisations that are suffering from indebtedness by people not paying their council tax, for example. So, were they not to be able to find more money, are you going to be able to manage with the demand as you currently foresee it?

Again, it's a really difficult question. I think from what we see from the number of calls that we have that we're not necessarily able to answer, I think it's fair to say that demand still does kind of outstrip what we're able to offer. So, I can imagine that it would be a huge challenge to be able to help the same number of people that we are at the moment.

Okay. Peter, you wanted to come back in.

Yes. Just to add that, needless to say, the funding situation for debt advice is quite complicated. With StepChange, we operate across the four jurisdictions within the UK and also we're funded, as it were, by the private sector through a thing called fair share funding, which you might have heard about, and we're going through—there is a round of Money and Pensions Service tendering for debt advice funding at the moment.

So, I think it's fair to say that when the pandemic first hit and then the first lockdown, two things happened quite quickly that affected our funding. Firstly, to keep the service running, we had to equip 300 to 400 advisers to work from home. So, they had to be equipped with laptops, with system builds and all of that, which was quite expensive, and there was some support and some extra support from Government.

But our fair share funding did take a hit in two ways: the number of people who were previously able to repay their debts, which the creditors give us a donation for that is linked to the size of people's debt repayments, that declined as obviously people were struggling, but also then the decreased demand. Actually a lot of the decreased demand for debt advice was that, in the early stages of lockdown, the Financial Conduct Authority had made some interventions with payment deferrals and also forbearance, and I think a lot of lenders were working harder to give people forbearance to keep their relationship going with their customers, anticipating that it would be a short-term difficulty. And speaking to people like the credit reference agencies, defaults entering the system were very, very low—much lower than you'd think given the economic shock. So, all that had an impact on one of our significant streams of funding. Then, when the demand didn't come, the funding that was there from central Government to support a COVID-surge demand wasn't repeated for obvious reasons. So, we did take a funding hit and there were extra costs, so it was quite difficult. We've had a difficult 12 months or so adjusting to that. We're in a place now where our finances are a bit more stable.

Going forward, there is the question of the need for a sort of comprehensive, complete way of funding debt advice, both advice but also different debt solutions. So, for instance, in the past, debt advice has been undersupported to do things like debt relief orders, which we hope will change in the future with some of the MaPS tendering. So, despite what may come next in the pandemic, there's a question about how well the way different debt advice funding mechanisms fit together. We've got things like the statutory debt repayment plan coming down the line, maybe in 2024, which would introduce a sort of statutory fair share. So, we need these funding streams to fit together and we need to fund both advice and solution servicing, and we need those funding streams to be able to be flexible if there are large ups and downs in demand. In this case it was a down, but it could just have easily—. Thinking of the 2008-09 recession, we saw a significant uplift in demand within about six months of the recession hitting, and we may still see that as a result of this one. So, it's quite a complex picture. The simple answer is that, at the moment, I think the funding is there to support demand, but that can all change very quickly, and how the different bits fit together is quite complex. 

I grasped that from your answer, but thank you very much for outlining that, which is now on the record. I'm now going to turn to Vikki Howells, who's going to ask you some questions about exactly who are these people who are struggling with debt. Vikki. 

Thank you, Chair. I'd like to gauge the view of yourselves as a panel about how different groups within society in Wales have been affected by debt issues during the pandemic. Gwen's already mentioned the private rented sector, but I wonder if we could dig a little deeper as to those different groups. 

I could start on that one. So, I think, as I mentioned, it's been quite an unequal impact, from a lot of the research that's coming out at the moment. So, we do know that some people have seen their financial situation improve during this period, particularly where their costs have come down, because they haven't been able to spend in the same way, and their incomes have been maintained. But what I think the research is showing is that there's been a disproportionate impact on people on low incomes, so I think—. There's a lot of survey research showing these groups are more likely to have run down savings, to have accrued debt, maybe to have had negative changes in their employment, and that's reflected in what we see in our service. 

I think, alongside that, there's a particular impact on groups who saw that negative impact on their jobs—so, people that we helped with job losses, people who'd lost business, particularly self-employed people, and those who maybe weren't covered to the full extent by some of those COVID schemes that were put in place. I think there's been a particular difficulty in adapting to that change amongst those groups. 

And, then, I think, just finally, Citizens Advice conducted some UK-wide research towards the end of last year, I think, looking at who was particularly likely to have fallen behind on bills, and that revealed that among those groups were young people, renters, as you mentioned, but also families with young children and people of colour, particularly black people. So, I think those are all groups we know have been particularly affected. In Wales, we did a piece of research as well, which revealed that people with mental health problems were twice as likely to have fallen behind on bills as a result of the pandemic, and we know there's a very tricky and difficult relationship between financial difficulty and mental distress. So, I think there are some particular risks there as well. 

From what you're saying there, Gwen, we, here, have certainly found that mental health has been a huge issue in the people that are coming to us at the minute for debt advice, and also we've found, like yourselves, that council tax is a huge issue. People have not been paying their council tax, because they simply haven't got the money, because they're on very little as it is. 

And, Peter, anything to add?  

Yes, just to add—. I'm going down my list of particularly affected groups that Gwen talked about, and our research finds similar things: parents with children under five; single working-age adults; black, Asian and minority ethnic communities; single parents; young renters; self-employed; and insecure workers. And one thing that's interesting there is both the continuities of what we saw before COVID—. So, a lot of those groups are people that we've been disproportionately seeing in our debt advice caseloads for the last decade or so, and certainly since the last recession. So, we've seen people more vulnerable to debt to be disproportionately single parents, to be disproportionately younger—so, over half our clients, I think, are now under 40—and massively disproportionately renters—so, only about under one in five of our clients are homeowners and two thirds are renters. So, these trends are—. In some ways, there's some continuity.

So, those that have been hit by COVID or seem to have been hit by COVID, the financial impact of COVID, tend to be those people who have low financial resilience and maybe are in more economically insecure places, so are more vulnerable to debt anyway and have the least resources to deal with an income shock. Just to put a few numbers on that—so, our polling suggests in Wales that about 29 per cent of adults had a fall in income since March 2020, and now about 21 per cent are showing some signs of financial difficulty, about 7 per cent problem debt, and 10 per cent arrears on household bills, which includes things like council tax, but 18 per cent experiencing some hardship. So, one of the things we saw with polling was, actually, we saw that those people who were hit by the shock tended to be hit quite early, and the number of people saying they've had a negative financial effect from COVID—and we first started polling in June 2020—those numbers didn't go up hugely as we kept looking, but what we found as it went on is that the number of people reporting hardship—so, going without meals, cutting back, rationing fuel, and just running out of room to cope with the shock—got bigger as time went on, and that's kind of where we are now. 

Thank you. 

Vikki, could I just bring Altaf in to follow-up what's already been said? 

Oh, thank you very much. Well, Peter has polled his groups and people very well, especially the ethnic minorities; there are people with disabilities, families with young children, who have suffered the most. Now, my question is: is there any evidence of how these population groups are now doing as we are emerging from the pandemic? Is there evidence of a slower recovery for certain groups, and, if so, can you evidence it? Thank you. 

Who wants to go first?

I can quickly go—[Interruption.] I can quickly go first to say that's an excellent question and I don't think we know the answer to it yet. As I say, we periodically poll. We'll keep tracking and we'll see what happens. In terms of what we're seeing in debt advice, we have been seeing an increasing number of people who are universal credit claimants, and so we'll see how that changes as we get towards furlough—. UC numbers have gone down a bit, unemployment has gone down a lot less than UC numbers, and when we get that 1.8 million or whatever still on furlough coming off furlough, we'll see where they go. This is where the debate about the £20 uplift becomes very important. So, in terms of recovery, what we've found is that that still meant that a lot of people we see on universal credit struggled to make ends meet, but that extra support reduced the number of people who were struggling to make ends meet on the benefit. So, the £20 uplift, removing it will increase the number of people with negative budgets on universal credit that we see by about two thirds. 

So, it's a bit early for us to be able to give you any solid evidence. It's something that we'll have to watch and monitor going forwards, but there are some indicators that whereas some groups we would expect to get better as the economy recovers, there are some groups whose situation may get worse—people coming off furlough, some UC recipients—but also things we've highlighted—renters, people who've built up a debt overhang. So, we had a piece of work out in the world last week on the 500,000 renters on UC who are worried about paying their rent, and maybe the 200,000 private rented sector tenants who are worried that they will be evicted or have to leave their home if they can't afford it in the next 12 months. Now, we'll see how that unfolds over time, but there are certain groups that are at perhaps high risk—renters with arrears, people with other debts, maybe like council tax and things like that, where if we see a big increase in, say, referrals to bailiffs, people on UC and some of those other groups we're talking about—. We don't know yet, but there are some things that are worrying us about what may happen next. 

Okay. Before I go on to Jane, who's going to ask about council tax, Vikki, did you have any further questions on this area? No. Okay, fine. Jane, that neatly moves us on, as Peter's already mentioned the thorny issue of council tax. 

Yes, thank you so much. In StepChange's 2019 report, you highlighted some of the key areas around where people found themselves in debt. And I just really wanted to kind of explore this a little bit more. Obviously, you've said that you haven't seen any impact post-COVID, but, really, for me, it plays into how the public sector organisations could manage this. So, council tax, I think, is a big one. Thirty-six per cent of the people in your survey had an average council tax arrears of £984, and I just really wanted to explore with you how that interchange with the local authorities works and to understand that a little bit more—from across all of the organisations. Thank you.

Well, from our perspective—again, we're a local organisation, really, in comparison to StepChange and Citizens Advice—but I know, from our perspective, the—. I don't think—. I probably would say that eight out of 10 of our clients come with council tax arrears. Something's not working somewhere. And the average, I would say, is a lot higher than what the StepChange survey was saying; I would say that it's probably about £1,500 to £2,000. But, again, I am talking locally in Cardiff here. So, I just—. I'm lost for words, really, as to how we're going to change how this is working. Because, clearly, within the local authority and the clients that we have out there, there's something not working, for them to get these arrears so high—if that makes any sense.

Gwen, do you want to add to that?

Yes. So, I think Welsh Government published some figures recently that showed the total amount of council tax arrears had risen by over £40 million. And that's about a 42 per cent increase on last year; it's the biggest single-year increase in the last 20 years, I think. And it's worth recognising that part of the reason for that is because there was a pause on some enforcement activity during the pandemic—lots of local authorities were treating people with much more forbearance, and some suspended their enforcement activity. We think that was a really, really important step, and it will have helped people who were in real crisis points to not put additional pressure on them, particularly at a time when people weren't able to necessarily seek support, when services were shut, or to find new jobs and that kind of thing.

So, just recognising that that was a really positive move from our perspective, but it also means that we now have this big amount of arrears that are going to need to be dealt with. We think it means we'll see more people with council tax issues. And one of the things that we're really worried about is that that will put people at risk of some of the harms that we've been highlighting in our research over the last few years. So, some of the main ones that we've been drawing attention to are the fact that people's debts can escalate really quickly. So, if you miss one payment, you can fairly quickly end up being liable for the whole year, and I think, for people who are getting bills through the door, that can be really alarming; it can feel quite overwhelming to deal with that. We know, through some of the steps of enforcement, that can add additional fees to what people are paying. So, it's around £70 for a liability order; it can be over £300 for bailiff fees. And then, on top of that, we have the issue of bad practice by bailiffs, essentially, where we see intimidating or threatening behaviour, and just behaviour that doesn't necessarily help people to find a way out of debt. Just to be aware, the use of bailiffs in Wales has been decreasing over the last few years; we have seen some positive steps from the Welsh Government in this area. But I think, in the most recent year for which figures are available, there were still around 50,000 council tax debts being referred to bailiffs. So, there is a risk that that number could go up, just because of the total amount of arrears that are outstanding.

Just to highlight the issue of what that means for the people that we help, we had a look at the cases that have been highlighted to us by our advisers over the last three months. Some of the things that we've seen in terms of bad practice: we've seen some clients pressurised into unaffordable payment plans—so, agreeing to pay an amount that they then can't do; they default on that, we have bailiffs coming back, adding additional fees—demanding payment in full when they're at someone's door; threatening and intimidating behaviour again. So, there's an example where someone had threatened—had clamped a neighbour's car, and wouldn't take that away until they got a payment. We've also seen some people threatened with prison, which, as the committee will know, is no longer the case in Wales, but is still being used as a threat.

So, there are really worrying cases. They are anecdotal, they're isolated cases, but I think they're indicative of the risks that people could be put at if this issue isn't dealt with. And I think, just to flag as well, this is an area where Welsh Government and local authorities are pretty much solely responsible—this is within our power to improve this and ensure it doesn't escalate as an issue in the next few years. And I think, just to say in particular, from the people that we help, we know a lot of the people who end up being subject to bailiff action, they're likely to be the people who have been disproportionately disadvantaged during this pandemic. So, in terms of making sure it doesn't fall on the hardest hit, I think this is an area where there's a lot that Welsh Government could do.

Okay. Altaf wanted to come in. Jane, did you have a supplementary, or—?

Yes, thank you very much. Oh, sorry. 

Hang on a sec. One second, Altaf. Jane, did you have a supplementary, or can I go—?

Yes, can I just really ask quickly—and I'm aware that Peter didn't have a chance to respond—in one sentence, what you think can be done? I think we've read about it, we've heard about the situation, and it sounds as if it's worse and it's going to get worse. What can the Welsh Government do? In one line, what can the Welsh Government do?

We set out quite a few steps in our evidence. I think the most immediate thing that we'd like to see Welsh Government do is recognise and look to identify some of the good practice that we think has gone on with local authorities during the pandemic, because we know some maintained their collection rates, despite there being this pause on face-to-face action by bailiffs. So, we think there's an opportunity to identify good practice there. Something else we want them to do would be to evaluate their council tax protocol and look at whether that has led to a shift in policies from local authorities. We'd also like them to look at whether they could make aspects of that statutory to make sure there's consistent practice across Wales. 

Okay. Altaf, what was your question on? On what we've already—

It was about housing debt. The same. 

Okay. I suggest, as we've opened up the thorny issue of council tax, that we go to Sioned on council tax debt, and I'll then come back to you on housing. 

All right.

Do you want to go, Peter?

Thank you. The short answer to that is 'yes'. That would be very good. In terms of one line, a couple of things there: a set of binding common standards that have got a bit of detail in about the fine detail of forbearance is really important. We've seen over the last few years how important that's been in areas like consumer credit, where having really good, firm roles that set out very clearly how creditors should respond to people in difficulty has made a lot of difference. I remember doing debt advice in the 1990s, when it was the wild west, and it isn't quite like that anymore. But, it is still a bit like that in some areas of council tax and bailiffs. 

One thing in particular, I was recently involved in a piece of work with the bailiff industry to try to have a new, only voluntary, but an independent oversight body, and we created a framework with quite a good mandate. So, that's something that it would be good for the Welsh Government to pick up on, and for councils working with bailiffs to work with this new body when it comes into force, and we want it to have standard-setting duties and responsibilities, and we want the Ministry of Justice to support that. If the Welsh Government could support that as well, then that would be a step towards—. If you could legislate, better still, but the idea is that we have some common standards that bind both the way that local authorities act to collect debt but also bailiffs that they commission and how they are. With bailiffs, there are all sorts of fee incentives and things that can drive bad practice. That's a big part of the story.

The other part of the story—. There are two bits to council tax, and one bit is about enforcement and how it's collected. The other thing is a large number of the people that we see with council tax debt will be what we call in debt advice 'negative budget clients'; in other words, their income isn't enough to cover their outgoings. So, things like the council tax reduction scheme is enormously important and things like the recent Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government guidance that came out talked about considering using powers to write off council tax debt where it is really unrecoverable or only recoverable causing hardship. It is one of the most difficult bits in debt at the moment. About a third of our clients have negative budgets, and we know that—. We track our clients after advice—we've been doing it for a few years—and clients with that advice, with negative budgets, even 15 months later, over 40 per cent of them are still having difficulty keeping up with basic bills like fuel and rent and council tax, because of the problems of affordability on rent, on council tax, on fuel, all those kinds of things.

So, there's another bit there: one side is about the conduct of the collection practices and debt management practices of councils and bailiffs, and, actually, there's a wider Government debt problem there that Government isn't great at doing this, at working out affordability and vulnerability. But then there's a specific question about how people who find themselves on very low incomes are able to keep up with council tax and when they're recovering debt that they just don't fall back in because they're being chased for debts that they can't realistically afford to repay. That's a harder policy question.

Okay, thank you. Can we now move on to housing debt? Altaf.

Thank you very much, Chair. My question is: is the moratorium expiring on 30 June? Do we have any evidence of an increase in the number of people being evicted and, if so, by what number and percentage?

Who would like to go first? Gwennan?

I can say a bit on that, yes. We have looked at our numbers and we saw more people needing advice on eviction for arrears last year during the pandemic than we had previously. And we also saw many people come to us for advice on illegal evictions. I think we're a bit cautious about those numbers, that they don't necessarily translate into an increased number of evictions; because there was that pause on eviction and the extension to eviction notices, it could just be that more people are kind of asking about their rights in that situation, that it was just a bit more confusing about what the process would be and more people kind of seeing potentially illegal evictions. But I think as well we are seeing more people needing advice on arrears in the private rented sector, so I think it's something that we want to keep an eye on, basically.

I think it's also likely that we will see a spike in evictions, purely because there's been this kind of pent-up demand whilst courts have been closed and eviction processes have been on hold. So, there's that to bear in mind as well, I think.

Thank you. Now, I have another question: are you aware of financial support being available to those tenants in the social housing sector and whether arrears have been building up in those tenancies too?

Who wants to go on that—arrears in social tenancies, basically?

So, we see people with arrears in both social tenancies and the private rented sector, and, again, the gap between what may be building out there—so, the kind of 500,000 UC claimants that I talked about earlier that would have been both private rented sector and social tenants who say that they don't think they'll be able to keep up with their rent. Now, whether that manifests into evictions or not, we don't know at the moment; it's a worry that this financial pressure is building. We have been a bit more worried about private rented sector tenants simply because it's easier to get evicted, and the kind of trigger on rent arrears is relatively low for mandatory eviction, so it's a sort of slightly—. And also the support is less. As you know, a lot of social landlords will have people who help sustain tenancies and financial inclusion officers, and there will be a bunch of support for some of the most financially vulnerable.

One of the things we've seen over the last decade is an increasing number of people coming for debt advice who are residents of the private rented sector but who also have other vulnerabilities like mental health problems, physical disabilities, people who have children. So, the idea is that it's people who 10, 15 years ago would have been social tenants. So, we're a bit more worried about what may happen next in the private rented sector, but also we're seeing some people come to us with arrears in the social sector as well. It's great that both Scottish Government and Welsh Government have gone some way to address this, with extra support in place for tenants in COVID hardship—all I'd say is two thumbs up to that, and that support may become more important as we come out of furlough and as landlords—. We know that something like 10 per cent of landlords have reduced rent, and 21 per cent have given repayment plans. So, landlords, because in some cases they haven't had much choice, because either they can't evict people or they can't get anyone to move in, quite a few of them have shown forbearance to that. Landlords may run out of puff and, actually, in the call for better help, lots of the landlords are on that call as well, so they're recognising it may get difficult for their members to sustain the rent arrears problem.

So, support from Welsh Government on this for those tenants who are struggling is a great thing, and I can only say now, again, like your previous question, there's been a small increase in evictions and in the national stats. As time goes on, that may start to snowball upwards, so the thing to do is, if the help is in place, to deal with that before it becomes a crisis point, as it's much better. We know that evictions and problems with housing affordability and housing insecurity have knock-on effects for people in terms of poor health, relationship breakdown and poor family relationships, and in terms of things like keeping in work and finding work, because of the stress that builds up. So, having something in place to help people walk down from the crisis rather than dealing with it when the crisis is actually there is a great thing. So, I think you've made a good start in Wales with the funding you've put in place.

Jason, is there something you want to add to what the others have said?

I was just going to say, from our service's perspective, I think we've seen a reduction, probably, in eviction because we have the housing solicitors in-house—they get the advice regarding the housing and what's going to happen, then come to get debt advice, but then they're held hand-in-hand on how to take the next steps to stop the eviction. I do think that's quite unique, the fact that there are solicitors available to help people who are in crisis.

Okay. Sioned, you had a further question.

Briefly, because we are running out of time—so, if you could keep your answers brief.

Just quickly, then, from our perspective we've seen some really positive changes with DAF during the pandemic, in that the Welsh Government have taken some steps. We've been working as well to increase use and awareness, support different disadvantaged groups, and address the underlying issues of people in crisis. I think our concern would be, with the removal of some of those flexibilities and potentially some of that funding, that some of the—. It's had a much higher profile during the pandemic, and awareness of it is much more widespread, according to our advisers, so I think we'd be concerned that putting up more barriers might get in the way of that being very freely available and people being confident to refer people there. So, I think an assessment of the impact that taking away those flexibilities would have on Welsh Government's ambition for that fund would be helpful.

Okay. Altaf, you wanted to come in on this.

Oh yes, Ma'am, thank you very much—about the discretionary assistance fund. Do you know how many people were supported by the fund, and what evidence is there as to the difference it made? That's No. 1. No. 2 question, very small again. Many of us understand that the recovery from the pandemic is going to take time. So, what measures should the Government now put in place, and should it reconsider any decisions it has already taken? Thank you.

Okay. Before I ask you to answer and give your final contribution, Sioned, what was your supplementary?

So, your final contributions please on both how many have benefited in grant terms from the DAF, and is there a way of improving the passporting that goes on when we're talking about one debt or another? Peter, do you want to go first?

So, I don't have to hand a precise number on DAF. Our polling that we did suggested about 13 per cent of people in Wales who'd had a COVID income shock had used some form of local welfare, which would be DAF but also other things like food banks and other organisations. And when we look at who's used local assistance, in a sense, it's quite well targeted, because it tends to be more likely to be people with children and people who've been experiencing hardship, so it's those that need it. 

The downside and maybe the weakness of it is compared to that 56 per cent who had borrowed to make ends meet, and the 26 per cent high-cost credit. We know where people are using things like credit cards and overdrafts to make ends meet to deal with the shock, they're 10 times more likely to be in problem debt. High-cost credit makes you 20 times more likely to be in debt.

So, it's thinking a little bit there of the weaknesses. The discretionary assistance is really important help for people who really need it, but maybe people aren't coming to it when they're really in difficulties, so what are the barriers to get people there earlier? Is it eligibility criteria? Is it more funding needed? Is it, for instance, the way that people are made aware of it and the easiness of applying? I don't know the answer, but they would be the things to look at. 

The final thing I'd say here with things looking like the kind of—. The way that you have a single fund and one where there's an emergency and then there's a part of it to help people specifically with white goods, keep going with that. We've again been tracking people with debt advice outcomes over time. We found that 15 months after advice we asked the question, 'Have you been able to put enough money aside to replace a fridge or washing machine?', and 36 per cent of people said, 'I'm not even close to that.' So, that's the sort of thing that could lead to people getting high-cost credit that starts a new spiral of debt. So, in terms of the way it's targeted and the needs it's focused on, great, but there are barriers there and there are still a lot of people using high-cost credit who maybe would be better off using local assistance if they could get at it. 

The last point on that is the Government announced a pilot for a no-interest loan scheme, which I think there will be some of in Wales as well. We're very supportive of that, and that's another way that help could be brought in to help people with something that would be repaid, like an old social fund loan from the past, in an affordable way that might stretch your budgets a bit, but would keep people out of high-cost credit and make it less likely that they fall in debt.

Thank you. Gwen.

Yes, I totally agree with what Peter said about DAF. In terms of it, it really is helping people who are in severe hardship, our data shows. One thing I wanted to flag is that Welsh Government during the pandemic piloted a scheme to provide payments to people who use oil and liquefied petroleum gas to heat their homes, which hadn't previously been available. I think it's just been announced that that will be going on for six months in the winter months. I think our preferred approach would be to have that all-year round, because we think there's no reason not to have parity of treatment with people who are on gas or electric with normal providers. And we think there's a disproportionate impact on people who live in rural areas. We know there's probably likely to be a disproportionate impact on people from Gypsy and Traveller communities. We can't see why there shouldn't be that equal treatment there. 

Okay, thank you. Jason.

Nothing to add on this one.

Great. Thank you very much. I'm afraid we've run out of time. We haven't even discussed addictions or capping rents or many of the other issues that you've nibbled at, but it's been very useful as a scene setter for the extent of the problem. So, thank you very much indeed for giving up time this afternoon. We'll send you a transcript of your contributions, and if you could look at them very carefully, because it can be very easy to mishear or misinterpret what you were trying to say. So, it's important that you do look at it and correct it where required. But thank you very much indeed for your evidence—really excellent expert evidence—and we look forward to having such high-quality evidence from the next witnesses we're going to get. So, thank you very much indeed for your participation.

Very good. We're now going to move to note a series of papers related to some of the legacies we're inheriting. First of all, can we note the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee's fifth Senedd legacy report, which was published in March of this year, before the election? Further, there is a paper to note that was in your packs that was sent out early in relation to correspondence from the Auditor General for Wales regarding the work of Audit Wales, which I received on 9 July. Correspondence from the Llywydd to me regarding the committee timetable on 14 July. Correspondence from the Chair of the Finance Committee to all committee Chairs regarding the draft budget for the Welsh Government. The Dŵr Cymru vulnerable customer workshop report, which obviously is really important probably in relation to our debt inquiry. Correspondence from Gwenith Price, Deputy Welsh Language Commissioner, regarding consideration of the Welsh language in our work. And then correspondence from the Chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee to committee Chairs, as well as correspondence from the director of the Royal National Institute of Blind People to committee members regarding the latest research into the voting experience for blind and partially sighted people. In addition to that, there is correspondence from Victoria Winkler, director of the Bevan Foundation, about child poverty and protecting migrants' rights; correspondence from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions regarding the universal credit uplift; and then correspondence from Altaf Hussain on a visit he did, about the challenges facing people with sight loss. And then finally, correspondence from the head of the Wales office of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists to me, for the attention of our committee, on the speech, language and communication needs of young people in the youth justice estate. And then additionally, correspondence from the Minister for Social Justice regarding the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. I think that is the full list of papers to note. Can we just agree to note them?

Yes.

We can always come back to them if we think of anything that we need to follow up. 

Right. I'd now like to suggest that we go into private session. This is under a Standing Order that I can't at the moment find, but no doubt will be ingrained on my memory for the rest of my life. So, to move into private session at this stage, are Members content to do that?

Yes.

Very good.