Minister questions target to eradicate child poverty by 2020
The minister responsible for tackling poverty has questioned the suitability of her own government's target of eradicating child poverty by 2020.
AMs were listening to evidence from Lesley Griffiths AM during the Communities, Equality and Local Government Committee, on 14 January 2015.
She said that it was "50/50 at the moment" whether the government should keep the pledge.
In her response to a question from fellow Labour AM Alun Davies regarding the reduction of child poverty in Wales, Ms Griffiths said that she "questioned" the eradication commitment.
The pledge dates back to the One Wales agreement in 2007, however during the meeting the minister said: "Our ambition is to eradicate child poverty by 2020. I've questioned that."
"I think it's completely correct to say that it's our ambition to eradicate child poverty by 2020. The consultation is saying to me that we need to be very honest about this. We need to be very pragmatic about this, and it's sort of 50/50 at the moment that we should carry on.
Ms Griffiths added: "I think it's important that people don't distract from what work they're doing ...But it is very complex and becoming increasingly complex. But I do think we are making a difference out there."
Alun Davies asked the minister to provide "statistical" evidence, instead of "anecdotal evidence" that the current government's approach is "actually working" to eradicate child poverty in Wales.
The minister insisted that their annual reports indicated that the government's targets and milestones are "decreasing poverty".
The Conservative Mark Isherwood referred to last year's report by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, chaired by Alan Milburn that said that "24% of Welsh children live in absolute poverty".
The minister replied that she is "happy to look at best practice, but some of our programmes are best practice and I hope that others look at them".