Leighton Andrews
Does the First Minister agree that the biggest impact on poverty in Wales is caused by the UK Government’s welfare cuts, such as the bedroom tax? Does he also agree with me that the impact of the latest proposals of the UK Government to make claimants sign in at job centres on a daily basis could mean that many of my constituents would have to pay more than half their benefit in travel costs?
Finally, is the First Minister aware that today the Prime Minister has said that he does not know the price of a loaf of bread because he uses a breadmaker? I think that the breadmaker is called Clegg. Does the First Minister agree with me that the clear message going out from the UK Government to those in poverty is that they should buy a breadmaker?
Carwyn Jones
Y Prif Weinidog / The First Minister
‘Give us this day our daily bread’ says the Lord’s Prayer. That is not something that the UK Government is providing for the vast majority of people. ‘Give us this day our daily breadmaker’ sounds more like it. However, I think the point is a serious one, and it is this: with the bedroom tax—[Interruption.] What is the price of a loaf of bread? It depends what type it is. It varies between 60p and £2.50, depending on where you buy it and what type of bread it is. It is like asking what the price of a car is. [Interruption.]
Y Dirprwy Lywydd / The Deputy Presiding Officer
Order. The hubbub has now got to the scale where I cannot hear what is going on. I do know the price of bread, so I did not need that information. First Minister, you really should not react to sedentary comments, ever.
Carwyn Jones
Y Prif Weinidog / The First Minister
As somebody who is often told by people in Bridgend, ‘It’s nice to see you out shopping in the local shops’, that is something that I am more than familiar with. I am given the task, when I am free, to go shopping, so I am familiar with the price of bread and litres of milk.
The serious point here is this: there are people who will be suffering as a result of these benefit cuts. The point that the Member for the Rhondda makes about travel costs is a serious point. People will now have to lose money in order to sign in, for no apparent purpose or reason; it will not help them to get jobs and to reduce the number of people who are unemployed. It is the same with the idea that people who are long-term unemployed should be made to work. That is an argument that many people in Wales would find attractive, I understand that, but it is not an attractive argument if it means that those people would be doing work that people who are paid to do it can no longer do, and they lose their jobs as a result. We know from the bedroom tax and the benefit cuts that the reality is that the message the Tories and the Lib Dems are trying to project is that people who are unemployed have only themselves to blame. That is what they are saying. The people who are being made redundant—it is their own fault. The people who lose their jobs because of the economic conditions created by the UK Government—it is their fault. That is the narrative that they are trying to construct, but the reality is that none of them understands the true cost on individuals and families in Wales of the benefit cuts that their Government is taking forward.
Comments