SENEDD members lined up today to fire economic questions at the First Minister on the day his government was announcing a package of budget cuts.

Plaid Cymru’s Sioned Williams wanted to know how the Welsh government was supporting families with children living in poverty.

First Minister Mark Drakeford said that the Tory government in London was presiding over an increase in child poverty in Wales, but his administration was doing “everything we can to reduce it, despite the extraordinary pressures on our budgets.”

He detailed an expansion of childcare, provision of free school meals to all primary school pupils and increases in the level of the education maintenance allowance.

Welsh Conservative member Altaf Hussain said a recent report had highlighted the importance of bus services to poorer people and wanted a commitment that Westminster government funding would be used to restore them.

Mr Drakeford accused the Tories of living in a parallel universe, arguing that the same report detailed Westminster government decisions leading to hundreds of thousands more children living in poverty across Britain.

Welsh Labour’s Alun Davies said it was “exactly a year ago today that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt reversed all the measures in former prime minister Liz Truss’s disastrous Budget.”

He asked the First Minister about a Public Health Wales report detailing the impact of poverty on children.

Mr Drakeford said he was shocked by the report’s finding that some parents could not afford to keep their children and their clothes clean.

“To think that is happening in Wales in the 21st century!” he exclaimed, adding: “Those families know where the responsibility lies.”