3. How is the Welsh Government helping people in fuel poverty in North Wales? OAQ(5)0124(ERA)

Our key programme for tackling fuel poverty, Welsh Government Warm Homes, includes the Nest and Arbed schemes. Since 2011, we have invested over £217 million to improve the energy efficiency of over 39,000 homes across Wales. Over 9,000 of these homes were in north Wales.

Thank you for that. It takes me back to a decade when we were convincing your previous colleagues in Welsh Government that a fuel poverty strategy includes energy efficiency but is a social justice issue. Age Cymru have said that many of the mechanisms and measures combined within the Welsh Government’s 2010 fuel poverty strategy are out of date and no longer applicable, saying that the time is right for the Welsh Government to refresh its fuel poverty strategy.

At both the Fuel Poverty Awareness Day cross-border north Wales conference in February and the Wales annual fuel poverty conference, we heard that, whilst the Welsh Government’s investment in energy efficiency schemes through its Warm Homes programme is commendable, we need a step change in ambition and the scale of resources earmarked. How, therefore, will the Welsh Government engage with the Wales Fuel Poverty Coalition, most of whose members you already work with in different contexts, over their statement that we drastically need a new fuel poverty strategy in Wales?

Since 2011, we’ve invested over £217 million in Welsh Government Warm Homes to improve over 39,000 homes. The important point about this, Mark Isherwood, is that, in households on low incomes or living in the most deprived areas of Wales, improving the energy efficiency of low-income homes delivers multiple benefits. It helps to tackle and prevent ill health, reduces carbon emissions, creates jobs and energy and improves educational attainment. A recent report by Public Health Wales estimated that investing in insulation and heating also, to address cold and damp housing, can have a huge impact. We know that the most effective way in which we can tackle fuel poverty in the long term is to improve the energy efficiency of homes, and we’re doing this effectively through Welsh Government Warm Homes.

Welsh households in fuel poverty are currently being asked to pay from their own pocket to subsidise windfarms and solar parks so that landowners can profit—£300 on an annual bill may not sound much to you on a Cabinet Secretary’s salary, but it’s a great deal of money for a low-income family. When are you going to give poor households a break and abandon subsidising these white elephants?

In terms of our Warm Homes programme, the most important scheme that you should draw your constituents on low incomes’ attention to is the Nest scheme, which actually delivered estimated average energy bill savings of over £400 per household. Let me go back to the issue of how we tackle fuel poverty. The most recent data indicate that fuel poverty in all households has reduced from 29 per cent in 2012 to 23 per cent in 2016—a reduction of 6 per cent in just four years—and we’re levering in up to £24 million of EU funding. Now, I wonder if you’re going to be supporting us in trying to ensure that we get that funding replaced when we Brexit, because it is quite clear that EU funding has also helped tackle fuel poverty in Wales.