From BBC Wales today, the above and:

“I was sleeping on the sofa, she had a bed that was propped up on books. One of the legs had fallen off completely.”

Sarah Ruscoe, a single mum out of work because of a health condition, said she had worried her daughter’s bed would collapse in the night after finding herself in a “dire” financial situation.

A food bank user, Ruscoe said “every year seems to be getting worse” as she struggled to make her benefits cover essentials.

A charity eventually paid for a new bed for daughter Sabrina, 11.

But MPs heard this week that the general picture of one in three children living in relative poverty in Wales had not changed in 20 years, with a thinktank saying the problem was becoming entrenched. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c933xpz1kdxyo

‘Entrenched?’ NBW, after centuries of Labour enjoying the position of ‘minding the shop’ and complicity with their bosses in London, prioritising England’s needs over those of their own folk. Remind you of anything, Jocks?

Some things are difficult to compare reliably but child poverty is not one.

From UK research – Children in relative poverty before housing costs

This indicator shows the percentage of children aged under 16 living in relative low income families Before Housing Costs (BHC), in the UK, for financial years ending 2022 to 2025.

Data source: Department for Work and Pensions published 26 March 2026: https://www.ons.gov.uk/explore-local-statistics/indicators/children-in-relative-poverty-before-housing#map

FFS, look at Wales! According to the above BBC report, 1 in 3, 33% of children in Wales living in relative poverty. it’ll be worse!

Here’s the prediction, from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, under UK Labour, for 2029:

Nation	Then-current rate used	Projected by Jan 2029
Scotland	23.7%	21.8%
England	30.8%	31.5%
Wales	32.3%	34.4%
Northern Ireland	25.5%	26.2%

Source: https://www.jrf.org.uk/work/economic-and-employment-growth-alone-will-not-be-enough-to-reduce-poverty-levels

Wales at 34.4% and Scotland at 21.8%, a 12.6% crude gap, but Wales then would be [12.6 as a percentage of 21.8] 57.7% worse, with hundreds of thousands of children more.

I wish Plaid Cymru well, but after centuries of Labour failure, that’ll will take some sorting.