Westminster ‘biggest obstacle’ to Welsh child payment, says Deputy First Minister

Nation.Cymru staff

Westminster is the “biggest obstacle” to delivering a new Welsh child payment, Deputy First Minister Sioned Williams will tell the SNP’s annual conference today.

Ms Williams will urge the UK Government to ensure families receiving the proposed Cynnal payment do not lose money through deductions from other benefits or income tax.

The scheme would initially provide £10 a week for children aged up to six in households claiming Universal Credit, with a pilot planned in a limited number of Welsh local authority areas.

Addressing delegates on Friday, October 16, Ms Williams is expected to credit Scotland’s approach to tackling child poverty as an inspiration for the plans.

“Plaid Cymru and the SNP share the belief that no child’s life should be limited by poverty. Taking inspiration from the SNP’s Scottish Child Payment, we are piloting our own direct child payment, Cynnal,” she will say.

“We have to pilot first, because we don’t yet have the same powers as Scotland over welfare. But we want to be able to show, as the SNP has, the difference that such a payment can make to the unacceptably high levels of child poverty we have in Wales.”

The Welsh Government needs the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs to agree exemptions, known as “disregards”, so families retain the full payment.

Ms Williams will tell the conference: “The biggest obstacle to delivering Cynnal now stands not in Wales, but in Westminster.

“I call on the UK Government again today to work with us and help us make a real difference to the lives of children of Wales, and I thank the SNP Scottish Government for lighting our path and adding their voice to ours in that call for action on child poverty.”

Analysis published on October 7 from the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation showed around two in five children in Wales were living in income deprivation in 2024.

Responding to those findings, Ms Williams called for “rapid and radical action” and urged the UK Government to provide the assurances needed for Cynnal to proceed effectively.

The Welsh Government says its wider work includes expanding funded childcare for two-year-olds and extending free school meal eligibility in secondary schools, alongside the existing universal primary school meals programme.

It is also developing a new child poverty strategy with targets and measures to track progress.

Additional powers

The request for agreement on Cynnal forms part of a broader Welsh Government push for additional powers and financial flexibility.

Earlier this month, First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth wrote to Prime Minister Andy Burnham seeking a “new deal for Wales”, including powers over welfare, policing and justice, rail infrastructure and the Crown Estate.

In the letter, he argued that Wales should have access to the same constitutional and fiscal tools already available to Scotland.

“Together, we make the voices of Wales and Scotland heard in Westminster and around the world,” Ms Williams will tell SNP delegates.

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