Wales Green Party Leader, Pippa Bartolotti, is urging the Welsh government to take action following a damning report into poverty in Wales. A National Assembly report has revealed that the numbers of people relying on food banks has doubled in a year and criticises ‘lack of progress’ regarding 23% of Welsh population living in poverty.
Bartolotti said: “No matter how many years we give this Welsh Labour government, it will not address the generational poverty in this land. In fact we are going backwards with almost a quarter of Welsh citizens living in poverty. It is shameful, neglectful and pompous of this government to allow poverty to gain such a foothold in Wales.
“The Minister for Communities and Tackling Poverty seems to have misread her brief. The objective is to eradicate poverty, not increase it. Women are particularly badly affected and the knock on effect to children must not be underestimated. This introverted government needs to grab some initiative and pull Wales out of this spiralling decline. We need bold imaginative policies to create jobs for the future, jobs to minimise energy usage, jobs in the construction industries and the much promised light rail network for SE Wales.”
The Green Party in Wales has real, workable solutions to address poverty. They pledge to invest in sustainable jobs, increase the minimum wage to a living wage and work towards a citizens’ income to cover people's basic needs.
Bartolotti continued: “When almost 90,000 people a day are commuting across the border to England for work, you know there is a problem with the economic management of Wales.”