Nearly two in five Pembrokeshire children in income deprivation
Official figures reveal 38.1% of Pembrokeshire’s under‑16s live in income deprivation, intensifying calls for the Welsh £10 weekly child payment pilot.
Nearly two in five children in Pembrokeshire lived in income deprivation in 2024, official figures show. The Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation puts the county’s rate at 38.1% for under‑16s, just shy of the Welsh average of 38.7%.
The data, released on 7 October, cover households receiving benefits, tax credits or asylum support and include families both in and out of work. Statisticians warn the measure differs from the relative‑poverty metric that compares income with 60 % of the UK median, and changes to benefit rules mean it cannot be directly compared with the 2019 index.
Across Wales, about 212,000 children were recorded as income‑deprived at the end of March 2024. The figures arrive as Welsh ministers press for safeguards on Cynnal, a proposed £10‑a‑week child payment aimed at families on Universal Credit.
Deputy First Minister Sioned Williams said the findings “strengthen the case for urgent action” and added: “There is no time to waste.”
Cynnal would target up to 15,000 children in Universal Credit households, delivering £520 per child over a year. The pilot is backed by a £2 million allocation in the June supplementary budget, though the full annual cost of £7.8 million for the 15,000‑child cohort has not yet been approved.
Ministers are seeking agreement from the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue & Customs to ensure the payment does not reduce existing entitlements. In the Senedd on 30 September, Ms Williams noted that Baroness Sherlock had agreed to explore how the new payment could be insulated from other benefit calculations.
The lack of a final agreement leaves Pembrokeshire families uncertain whether the county will be included in the pilot, who will qualify and when the first payments could start. Local officials pointed to the recent Thrive.Ffynnu Youth Poverty Summit, where pupils and training providers highlighted how hardship shapes daily life and urged councils to feed young voices into policy decisions.
The summit underscored a broader pattern: 53% of secondary pupils in the most deprived tenth of Welsh areas were persistently absent in 2022‑23 and 2023‑24, compared with 22% in the least deprived tenth. Attendance gaps, while not proving causation, illustrate the link between deprivation and educational engagement.
Scotland already runs a larger child payment of £28.20 per week, which officials say does not affect other benefit entitlements and is modelled to keep 50,000 children out of relative poverty by 2026‑27. The Welsh proposal would be smaller in both amount and reach, but the Scottish example is frequently cited as evidence of the potential impact of direct cash support.
A UK‑wide policy shift also looms: the two‑child limit on Universal Credit was removed on 6 April, a change the UK Government predicts could lift 450,000 children out of poverty by the end of the parliamentary term. Because the Welsh deprivation figures capture conditions in March 2024, they do not reflect the effect of that recent reform.
Families seeking advice on existing benefits can contact the Welsh Government’s Claim What’s Yours service on 0800 702 2020. The new data and the pending Cynnal pilot together highlight the urgency of targeted financial relief for Pembrokeshire’s most vulnerable children.