 Prinhoundar, a ddod i'n gweithio ar gweithio'n gweithio. Dyma'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gwladol i'r newydd a Llywodraeth, sy'n gweithio'n gweithio. Fel hynny, roeddwn i'n gweithio'n Gweithio'n Gweithio, mae'n fathio'r prysgafodd cyffredinol ymgyrchyniad. Rydym wedi'i bwysig i'w dweud yng Nghymru i'r Gweithio, a'u ddweud i'r dweud yng nghymru i'w ddeud, a'u ddweud i'r bwysig i'w dweud ymgyrch yn gweithio eich dweud. Fe'n gwneud i'r ddweud i ddeud a'u dweud i'r prysgafodd cyffredinol i'w ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r gweithio i'r ddweud i'r gweithio i'w ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ddweud i Wales. ac mae'r cyflwyf yn cydweud yn cydweud i'r cyffredinol yn ymddangos. Y rhaid i'n dweud y mae'n gweithio gyrddol yn cydweud i'r cyffredinol, roeddwn i'r unig sethau ar gyfan. Dda ei fod yn hynny'n gwybod ei fod yn debyg gyda cael ei gael cerdd, yn gallu gyrwp hynny'n cerddau yn llyfr y maen nhw, ac mae'n llwyddo i gyfrifio'r cyffredinol, ond rydyn ni wedi'u gynnwys ymdegu'r cyfrifio'n cyfrifio'n cydweud i'r cyffredinol. Mae'r parwysg wedi eu syniadau iawn, ac mae'n gwneud o'r partласт sy'n chongefodol iawn. Nid ydych chi'n i gweithio ddechrau i chi weld gweithreibol ar gyfer gyfrontio y shelters. Mae'n ddigydd iawn i'r parwysg sy'n ei gweithreibol i chi'n gweithreibol i chi weld gyfrontio y shelter. Mae'r parwysg sy'n ddigwydd yn ei gweithreibol i chi'n gweithreibol i chi weld gweithreibol i chi ddechrau i chi'n gweithreibol i chi'n gweithreibol i chi ddweud. Chwebwyswyl, wrth gwrth iwn, felly ei wneud chi'n gweithio amserau ych yn ôl sy'n gweithio. Yn mynd i, Mae chi'n olygu i dda'n gweithio'r wyrddol. Mae'n ddefnyddio £20 miliwn o'r hwn o'r ynchynnig i'n tot yn ei wneud yn cael ei gwasanaethol. Dyma'r tŵun fydd c winner i'r cyflwyno bwysig ei wneud, gyda bod y awdraeth iall gwyllt yn eifyd yn y gwlad o ddwyggwad, will be offered the opportunity to take part in the pilot. We expect more than 500 young people to be eligible to join. Participation will not be mandatory, so exact numbers won't be finalised until the end of the first year. But everyone taking part in the pilot will receive a payment of £1,600 before tax every month for two years. HMRC and DWP have confirmed the payment will interact with the tax and benefit system and will be recognised as income. We're disappointed that DWP has not worked with us from the start to ensure a smooth and simple process to support these care leavers. We've worked with care experienced young people through the process of developing this pilot. Their questions, concerns and ideas have been critical in shaping the pilot and ensuring it will work for all those taking part. And as the pilot progresses we will continue to listen to learn and adapt based on the feedback from the young people taking part. We want all our young people to have the best possible chance in life and fulfil their absolute potential. Our basic income pilot is an incredibly exciting project, helping a generation of young people to find financial stability. Too many people leaving care face too many barriers to achieving their hopes and ambitions, such as problems getting a safe and stable home to securing a job, building a fulfilling career. We hope a basic income will help overcome some of these barriers and limitations and provide these young care leavers security to explore opportunities for their future adult lives. This pilot will offer important learning about what a basic income may offer in terms of benefits and challenges. It is a time limited pilot which will enable us to evaluate and assess the impact of the policy on care leavers as a group and offer wider insight about the value of basic income as an approach. Listening to everyone who takes part will be crucial determining the success of this globally ambitious project. Thank you. Diolch. I'll now take questions. So can I start with Catherine from BBC Wales? Amanda, thank you. On this basic income pilot it's a £20 million experiment essentially, it's an expensive experiment. What would success look like at the end of it and do you acknowledge that as an experiment it could all fail too? Well Diolch yn fawr. I have a question. Thank you for your question. It's really important that we see this basic income pilot as an opportunity to invest in those young care leavers who, as we know and the evidence is clear, has faced so many obstacles in their lives as they're growing up and this is now the transition into adulthood. So what we see in terms of success is for those young people who already are saying those who are taking part and who have helped us with this pilot, that this actually shows that we trust them, that we believe in them, that they can actually now look to the future with optimism, that they can think about their job, their education opportunities and just the way in which they've responded so far to say that this doesn't, they're often on a cliff edge in terms of what happens next. So many young people have their parents around them and communities, families, extended families, helping them through these difficult times but we now know from talking to care experienced young people what a difference this will make. So we hope that these young people and of course in very different circumstances across the whole of Wales a diverse group of young people by the end of this pilot we'll see that they have their futures and mapped out for them because of the confidence, because of the support we've given them as well throughout this pilot. I mean this is an experiment, we're not alone globally, basic income pilots taking place but there's a great deal of interest and evidence already that it improves well-being, self-esteem, confidence but crucially it's that financial stability, particularly at these tough times, the cost of living crisis. Diolch. Can I now turn to housing Ukrainian refugees? We were told that using Eireth centres to host Ukrainian refugees was due to come to an end shortly. But now we've done, BBC country has been told that Llangrannog and Cardiff Eireth centres have received what they call a last minute request from the Welsh Government to extend the arrangement into the summer. Can you confirm that and explain why that last minute request has been made and on the June pause in visa applications from Ukraine, will that now restart in July? Well we are so proud of our welcome centres and the welcome that they've given to Ukrainian refugees who are fleeing from the most horrific conflict and we see the terrible news overnight of that attack on innocent civilians in a retail centre. But we have already got in the figures, published figures last week, 3,000 people with sponsors in Wales who've arrived in Wales in the UK and over a thousand of those have Welsh Government as a super sponsor for our welcome centres. We have welcome centres all over Wales and we actually had another one opening yesterday because they're all meeting the needs of Ukrainian refugees and we of course visited First Minister and I to see last week to see the wonderful work, the welcome that's been given at the Eireth but I've also visited other welcome centre working so closely with their local authorities, their health boards. So I mean this is not news at all, this is about us working day by day to see have we got the capacity looking towards opening other welcome centres and very much welcoming the fact that the Eireth can continue to provide this support as we welcome Ukrainian refugees and we've got to recognise that this is something where we also have to support and thank those families, those households across Wales who are also providing that support. And sorry just on the visa pause in applications. Well what we have done is we've just paused for a few weeks our super sponsor route because our welcome centres are full to capacity. As I said more welcome centres opening, of course the fact is that refugees who already had got their visas didn't stop there arriving, it's people who are actually now fulfilling their homes, signing up for homes Ukraine who we paused. So we well over the thousand we said we originally would support we got to do this responsibly and I think that's the way forward to do this responsibly to make sure that we can give the right welcome to all of those who are coming and then to ensure that we can increase the capacity and indeed ask people again to open up their homes to help us with responding to the refugee response for Ukraine. It's vitally important that that's the way forward. Thank you, so can I move to Agent Masters ITV Wales? Thank you. Can you say how you as a Welsh Government, if a Welsh Government is acting as the guardian to these young people, how you will help them with things like budgeting and dealing with what for a lot of them will be the most money they've ever had? Well, thank you very much, Agent. I mean, I think you've met some of these care experienced young people, some who actually won't be eligible because they're older, who help sort of guide us and advice us on this and we listened to them right from the word go, what is it you would need and help in terms of support if you were to take part in this scheme and they said we would need financial guidance and advice, but also access to all of the other opportunities that young people will have. So there's within our 20 million budget, there's 2 million, particularly round giving from advice on financial supporting guidance through our single advice fund already experienced with with working people with people who need that kind of advice. It's crucial also that they are going to be supported by their local authorities, they still have leaving care advisers, they have social workers working with them, but they'll be plugged into things like the young person's guarantee up for the age of 25, so we're confident that we've actually listened to care experienced young people and responded with this bespoke package of support. And how would you support them when it comes to the end of the two year periods because that could prove to be quite a difficult transition? Well it's very important that we evaluate this experiment, this basic income pilot from day one and that evaluation will include the young people themselves, the feedback that they will give us and through their advisers, we're working very closely with voices from Care Cymru which has worked with Care Experienced Young People and have Care Experienced Young People as trustees. So throughout the two years they will be getting that advice and support, it will feedback about how we then move towards the end of the two year period, but also there will be a specific one-to-one sessions in terms of financial advice for example. I mean we obviously hope and anticipate that we will see that these young people will be very settled as a result of this financial stability they've got, whether it's into work, education, apprenticeships, even setting up their own businesses. It's given them confidence, the financial stability that so many young people get from their families and friends, but these young people haven't had them and as they've said and you will have heard them age and it's about us giving them that opportunity, empowering them to actually look to the future. It's a kickstart I think as young people have said today. Thank you very much. Now can I very much welcome Evie Breeze from Big Issue and I think Evie, probably this is the first time you've joined a press conference. Are you Evie? Hi there. I'm not the first time ever but the first time here so thank you for the welcome. My question is that, the first question is, so I believe the income is £19,000 a year for two year period. How do you plan to deal with rising inflation and the cost of living so that the income maintains its value? It's, I mean it's very important that we've had to cost this pilot. It isn't expended over two years and get it in the budget as well. It's a £20 million investment and everyone will get that £1,600 per month. It's actually one of the most generous basic income schemes across the whole of the world. You probably know that Evie already so we believe we at least have tried to ensure that this pilot and this income injection into the given that financial stability will help them with a really great start in life but also you know there's lots of other things that we're doing in terms of tackling the cost of living crisis. We've been winter fuel support payments. We're doing work for fuel vouchers for people on prepayments. They don't have to pay council tax but that was before this scheme was developed so you know we will make sure that they're passborted to every other benefit that's available in Wales which includes the most generous student supports scheme in the UK and of course we still pay educational maintenance allowance in Wales. That was scrapped in England long time ago by the UK government so you know we're going to everything we'll get every bit of advice and support to make sure they can be also buffered but you know basically this is a good start for our care leavers as they enter transition. Thank you just for clarification sorry were you saying that the care leavers that are participating in this scheme will also be able to claim other benefits such as the fuel allowance? Well clearly there are some eligibility criteria for some of our other schemes. We're just about to actually launch the next phase of our winter fuel support scheme for example but they will have in terms of cost of living there are many ways in which we are supporting people in Wales. You know we don't have powers over tax and benefits in Wales that's the UK government. The UK government has not cooperated with us as we would wash we wouldn't we don't want this basic payment to be taxed for example and yet they're taxing it and also they're unfairly assessing it in terms of eligibility for universal credit so we would still turn to the UK government said look at our scheme learn from it and we hope then you will benefit from it because it's about care experience some of the most vulnerable young people in the country being supported by the Welsh government. Thank you Evie so can I go to Kate Lindpar from LBC. Thank you minister good afternoon is this funding just the Welsh government basically compensating for this specific group of young people essentially being neglected after they've left care up to now? Well I think what's very important and as I've said it in my in my opening remarks and in my statement I will be saying this afternoon we have we've always valued our our care our young people in care we have you know particulars and David's Day award and sponsor for our young people we don't they don't have to pay council tax we have ways in which our trust funds are boosted for them we work closely with our local authorities there and we have done to develop this pilot and we know from their circumstances we know that they are vulnerable that they have been through tough times but we also know and if you've if you've read any of the comments that have come from young people already about this pilot that some of them have been have had wonderful care we know that through foster caring for our care system here in Wales which is you know local authorities are corporate parents and so we believe this is actually continuing our investment in our young people as they go into that very difficult transition we are focusing on them we want them to have the same start in life that other children who have been brought up in more family stability and that's why we're making this investment. Brilliant thank you and just on the restart of the super sponsor scheme we've been speaking to a Ukrainian gentleman this morning who's living in Swansea at the moment on refugees being welcomed into Wales he said that it's effectively a postcode lottery at the moment as to who has access to opportunities in their new community like work or clubs and groups for their children and English language courses will the funding sort of improve over the coming weeks and provide them with more but more opportunities to integrate comfortably into their new communities all across Wales? Well we have a strong welcome for our Ukrainian refugees we are a nation of sanctuary we welcomed Afghan refugees last summer and I'm not just all those organisations like the ear so many people have come forward third sector voluntary groups to care and support our Ukrainian refugees but I have to say local authorities have played a fantastic role in showing that our Ukrainian refugees do get access to all those services can I make a very strong point here we have us we are funding and supporting our welcome centres we don't get a penny from the UK government for that we are consistently asking the UK government to fund for example the families who are coming forward who are not part of homes for Ukraine but actually family connections not a penny is going to support local authorities to help those families so we are paying our way because we believe in supporting Ukrainian refugees and families and of course there's some fantastic things going on with English as a second language I met some Ukrainian families in my constituency on Saturday they were going to ESOL classes today but then volunteers were coming forward from local groups like the Seroptimist and doing one-to-one support the way we're investing in a summer of fun of activities for our children young people all Ukrainian refugees and their children will be able to benefit from them and of course they're coming into our schools are registering with our GPs but you know we do say that the UK government should also be supporting our tremendous efforts but we are the nation of sanctuary here in Wales thank you Will Haywood thank you minister um no one would begrudge care leavers getting support I don't think but in May 2021 the Welsh government said it wanted to test the concept of universal basic income but a key part of UBI is that universal element and this study will do little to test the impact for instance on people who are in long-term employment or those with caring responsibilities was this the best way to fulfil your stated aim of testing universal basic income well clearly we had to look at what we could do what the resources we we put into this and look at as you know will the most vulnerable people who could benefit from us testing the basic income premise that we can if we can give a basic income to people particularly vulnerable group of people then see what it what impact it has on their life their circumstances and their future prospects I mean I was very I might very much welcome the fact that so we have that we have a external steering group including all those engaging in Wales and UBI projects but also that it's chaired by Sir Michael Marmot who's you know absolute poved leader lead in the poverty fields and Guy Standing who's done a lot of work on UBI and they've backed the fact that we're focusing on this cohort I was also very pleased with the petitions committee that they looked into this and that they they asked us to make sure that it was reaching out to all our care experienced young people that we that we work closely with them to get this pilot right so you know this is this is a basic income pilot will that we're we're taking forward to look at how we can within our resource and with our commitment look at the needs of this most vulnerable group of people young people of course they're drawn from the whole of Wales as well and let's learn those lessons from this basic income pilot and also show it across the world because there's many other pilots looking at the same in the same way at certain cohorts thank you many people in Wales are really feeling the pinch during the cost of living crisis what do you say to the people who criticise the use of tens of millions pounds of public money when the Welsh NHS has enormous waiting lists and many local services are starved of funds well we we made a commitment to pilot a basic income not just in our manifesto for the elections last year but in our and then subsequently into our program of government so we feel we got we got the mandate to take take this forward but also I think people will understand as they listen and learn about the lives of young people who are in care that this actually is an investment in public services isn't it because you know if we can if this 20 million over three years give this stability and these opportunities to these young people and if you read their stories they want to be they want to run businesses they want to have careers they want to have jobs they want to have families and they don't want to be homeless they don't want to be in the criminal justice system um they don't want to be costing the state money um because of failure so you know we believe this is an investment in public services for our young people and I think people in Wales have that kind of compassionate outlook and recognise that we should do all we can to support our young people in those circumstances thank you can I go on to Tom Magnef from Caerysworld Live thank you very much indeed minister can I pick you up on you appear to be singing the praises of local authorities for the first question I have I put to your health and the economy ministerial colleagues the issue of the failure of the Welsh local authorities to process unpaid carers needs assessments in accordance with their legal duties do you accept from me that such delay and failure of local authorities to act promptly efficiently efficiently and compassionally is not socially just well clearly our local authorities have got statutory duties as you know Tom under the social services and well-being act to undertake those assessments of unpaid carers and you know our deputy minister for social services Julie Morgan working very closely as you know with all our local authorities um and care and care agencies to ensure that those assessments can take place but I'm sure you will Tom have welcomed the payment to unpaid carers that Julie Morgan announced the £500 and also more money as well to assess help with the assessment of their needs thank you very much indeed for that you drew attention to the money that's been allocated to unpaid carers um given that 96% of care across Wales is provided by unpaid carers shouldn't they be at the heart of Welsh Government social justice thinking and policy rather than on the margins where occasional small amounts of money are handed out often with complicated qualifying provisions and a drop in the ocean compared to how much unpaid carers say the Welsh Government every year well you know unpaid carers are absolutely the forefront of our you know our commitment um for my commitment as minister for social justice working very closely with my colleagues in health and social services but across across the board now what I would say um Tom that I think some of the initiatives that we are developing to tackle the cost of living crisis within our powers don't forget tax and benefit doesn't lie within our powers tax and benefits will help unpaid carers because we are um not only the the cost of living payments that have gone out this year to people in bands A to D 150 pounds the 200 pounds that went out to those who are eligible for the winter fuel support scheme over winter there will be unpaid carers who on prepayment meters and off-grid they're going to benefit from the four million pounds I announced three or four weeks ago to work with the fuel foundation to get fuel vouchers we will do everything we can to help those who are at the sharp end particularly as you say of caring thank you Tom thank you