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Peredur Owen Griffiths, who represents Plaid Cymru, is one of four regional Senedd Members serving the South Wales East region.

The cost-of-living crisis has featured heavily in the news agenda in recent months; and rightfully so. During the many street surgeries I have conducted in my region since my election to the Senedd, this has been a common issue raised on the doorstep. The communities I have visited in Caerphilly are no exception.

Between rising food costs, spiralling gas and electric tariffs and the extortionate prices at the fuel pumps, household budgets are under the kind of pressure not seen for generations. Many families are having to make stark choices between heating and eating. That’s simply not right and is a damning indictment on the UK which is one of the richest economies in the world.

Here in Caerphilly County Borough, we have some of the most deprived communities in the country according to the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation. The wards of St James – near to Caerphilly town centre – and Twyn Carno, which lies in the upper part of the Rhymney valley, were both in the top ten of most deprived council wards in Wales according to the 2019 index.

A lack of disposable income has not been helped by the fact that council tax within the county borough has risen by 40% in the last ten years when Labour took charge of running the local authority. The Plaid Cymru group has pledged to freeze charges in its first year; just like it did in 2010 and 2011 when it ran the council.

Within the limited devolution settlement we have in Wales, there is more that we could and should do. One of my Plaid Cymru colleagues in the Senedd, Sioned Williams (who hails from the Rhymney area originally), published a plan earlier this year to ease the financial burden on families throughout Wales. This included the expansion of the Winter Fuel Support scheme into Spring, accelerating the rollout of free school meals and increasing the Education Maintenance Allowance. The plan also included plans to cancel council & school meal debt as well as extend the Tenancy Hardship Grant and capping social housing rent increases, while increasing the discretionary housing payment fund. The final point in the plan was to campaign the Westminster to reverse the cut to Universal Credit and seek the devolution of powers over welfare to pursue a more compassionate approach to social security.

Thanks to Plaid Cymru, we will have free school meals in primary schools as it is one of the key policies included in the co-operation agreement we signed with the Welsh Government. At our recent spring conference, we unveiled a pledge to prepare to introduce this policy in secondary schools within the local authorities we control after the elections. Poverty does not end for children in primary schools.

Whilst we continue to campaign for more powers and more autonomy to insulate Wales from an increasingly callous and out-of-touch Westminster, it is important we keep a focus on the positive changes that we can make at local authority level and at Welsh Government level. The people and communities we represent are owed that much.