Last week, I hosted and spoke at the launch of the cross-party group on fuel poverty and energy efficiency. I was a member of the energy watch cross-party group during the second Assembly and chaired the cross-party group on fuel poverty during the third and fourth Assembly terms. We worked together to establish the Fuel Poverty Coalition and to launch the fuel poverty charter in 2009, and to secure the Welsh Government’s revised fuel poverty strategy in 2010. Working with Fuel Poverty Coalition members, the new cross-party group will campaign to place fuel poverty at the heart of action to tackle poverty, with strong emphasis on all sectors taking responsibility together. NEA Cymru—National Energy Action—is keen to engage with Assembly Members in their work on fuel poverty and through the new cross-party group on fuel poverty and energy efficiency, and I urge any Members who have not completed their short survey, which has been sent to you by e-mail, to do so.

In 2012, almost 30 per cent of Welsh households were estimated to be in fuel poverty, spending 10 per cent or more of their household income on fuel to maintain heat adequate enough to safeguard comfort and health. Investment in home energy efficiency improvements via Welsh Government and UK Government schemes, combined with changes in household incomes and fuel prices, saw this fall to 23 per cent in 2016. That still represents 291,000 households in Wales, including 43,000 in severe fuel poverty. As the Bevan Foundation and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation told the Assembly’s Communities, Equality and Local Government Committee two years ago, fuel poverty should have a higher profile in the Welsh Government’s tackling poverty action plan because it’s a fundamental human need to have a warm home. There is no realistic prospect of achieving the 2018 target of eradicating fuel poverty in Wales and, as Age Cymru state:

‘many of the mechanisms and measures contained within the 2010 Fuel Poverty Strategy are now out of date or no longer applicable.’

They add that ‘the time is right’ for Welsh Government to refresh its fuel poverty strategy, with a clear programme and timescales, credible evidence base and an ambitious new fuel poverty target rooted in delivery, rather than being a hostage to energy price movements.

As NEA Cymru stated at Wales’s annual fuel poverty conference in March, we drastically need a new fuel poverty strategy, adding 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.

They’ve asked Assembly Members to call on the Welsh Government: to designate domestic energy efficiency as a key national infrastructure priority at the heart of the national infrastructure commission for Wales’s investment priorities; to develop a new long-term strategy for addressing fuel poverty as a matter of urgency; to set a new fuel poverty target; to improve homes to a minimum energy efficiency, backed up with the data needed; to invest in a well-resourced, well-targeted energy efficiency programme for fuel-poor households in Wales; to save lives by implementing the NICE guidelines on tackling excess winter deaths; to fund independent advice services to support people in fuel poverty; and to protect vulnerable households with a crisis fund for emergency heating when their health is at risk.

At last month’s rural north Flintshire community hub launch by the North Wales Energy Advice Centre, we heard that this tackling fuel poverty project, including Flintshire’s affordable warmth crisis fund, should be a model for spreading across communities in rural Wales. NEA deliver projects to assist fuel-poor households in Wales, including a health and innovation programme. In March, with NEA Cymru, I hosted the Assembly launch of Calor’s rural Welsh energy advisorship programme 2016-17 to assist fuel-poor households. The independent, charitable British Gas Energy Trust helps around 25,000 vulnerable households each year, and Centrica, their parent company, has charity partnerships with StepChange Debt Charity—I declare that one of my daughters works for them—CLIC Sargent and Macmillan, and works closely with Action on Hearing Loss, RNIB and Mind. E.ON add value to their energy company obligations support for communities in Wales through locally funded projects, community engagement and job creation schemes.

Well, with almost one in four households in Wales still unable to afford to heat their homes, it’s clear that we need to maintain the political focus on fuel poverty and energy efficiency at this National Assembly. It’s essential that the Welsh Government works with Fuel Poverty Coalition members to place fuel poverty at the heart of action to tackle poverty, engaging with all sectors and so maximising the opportunity presented by working together.