I PREFER the term “children living in poverty” rather than child poverty, which seems to indicate that it is something to do with the child. 

That any child is brought up in poverty is wrong but that tens of thousands in Wales — estimated at one in four children by charity Children in Wales — are affected this way is a disgrace and an indictment of the Conservative government at Westminster.

When a child in Wales talks about being hungry, cold, and worried about their parents it sounds like something from Victorian times. It is a concern that this is the reality for many children in Wales.

The Welsh government has made progress on providing free school meals to children in Wales, following on from the provision of free breakfasts in primary schools, which aims to provide children with a healthy breakfast before the start of the school day. 

Children who can eat a healthy and nutritious breakfast prior to the start of the school day are healthier and are more likely to achieve their full educational potential.

Currently all children in Years 1 and 2 in state schools receive free school meals, while children in Years 3 and 4 will receive free school meals from Monday April 17 2023. 

All children in Years 5 and 6 will receive universal primary free school meals from September 2023. By 2024 all primary schoolchildren in state schools in Wales will get free school meals.

While this a huge movement in the right direction, we also need it to be expanded into secondary schools. Children do not become less hungry because they start secondary school.

This leaves the school holidays, with one mother telling me that she hated the school holidays because she had to provide 10 extra meals a week for each child. Many of us are campaigning for the reintroduction of free lunchtime meals during the school holidays.

Children living in poverty is not inevitable but caused by the action or inaction of governments. We must never accept it or become immune to the suffering it is causing.

Over 10 years ago there was a programme to prevent poverty, through investment in giving children the best possible start in life. 

From conception through to early adulthood, the aim was to reduce inequality at the earliest possible stage and break the link between socio-economic disadvantage, educational underachievement and the impaired life chances that flow from these. 

One of the great successes of the Labour government in Wales is Flying Start. This has had a major benefit for children entering nursery at the age of three. Flying Start is a programme to create positive outcomes for children. 

When some children start nursery school at three, they can be two years behind others in terms of development, which means something needs to be done.

It is incredibly difficult to reduce this gap over the eight years children are in primary education. It needs addressing before they start nursery school. 

The key is providing an opportunity for children to develop between two and three in such a way that they start school with development consistent with their chronological age.

The challenge is ensuring all those in need of Flying Start are provided with it. We owe it to our children to ensure that they all have an equal opportunity. I have heard from parents and carers about the positive impact Flying Start has had on their families.

Too many of the people living in Wales are employed on “flexible” contracts with no guarantee of weekly income based on variable hours and the government-set minimum wage.

There was a time when the way out of poverty was into employment but following the development of “flexible contracts” and “agency” working all at the minimum wage, it is no longer the case.

For those in work it can make for a precarious life where sickness or loss of hours can plunge people into absolute poverty, literally without any money.

Increasing numbers of companies are taking on staff on “zero-hours” contracts, which provide employers with a pool of people who are “on-call” and thus puts all the financial risk on to the employee whose income is not guaranteed. 

A variation on zero-hours contracts is where there is a guarantee of as little as one hour a day and when people arrive at work, they then discover how long the shift is going to be.

This is a highly disruptive work pattern because you are unable to make plans for any part of the day until the day itself and wages vary from week to week.

Then there are people on benefits, such as universal credit, with claimants being sanctioned for minor errors in their claim. The current benefits system is being administered in such a way that taking money off claimants appears the top priority.

An example is the person who was unemployed and on benefits whose biggest fear was that they would have a job interview and jobcentre interview at the same time in which case they could not avoid being sanctioned for missing one of them.

Then we have PIP being refused to many disabled people, leaving them in a serious position financially following an arbitrary decision. According to the Department for Work and Pensions’ own statistics, 59 per cent of appeals are won by the claimant because the tribunal reached a different conclusion based on the same facts.

Examples I have come across include people severely disabled who were refused PIP and people with degenerative disease being asked when they will be fit to work.

Children living in poverty is caused by low and variable weekly wages and a benefit system that is not fit for purpose leading to the use of foodbanks which are the soup kitchens of the 21st century.

Mike Hedges is Labour Senedd member for Swansea East.