Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:24 pm on 22 October 2019.
I thank the First Minister for that reply. I wonder if he ever has any sleepless nights about the impact upon the lives of ordinary people of climate change policies of the UK Government and the Welsh Government. Figures for fuel poverty in Wales were published recently—that is, people spending more than 10 per cent of their income on keeping warm—130,000 vulnerable households spend more than 10 per per cent on keeping warm; 32,000 households spend more than 20 per cent of their income on keeping warm. And yet it's the policy of UK Government and Welsh Government to make fuel more expensive in order, supposedly, to save the planet. The carbon zero by 2050 commitment, which Theresa May made as a parting shot to us all before she left office, has been estimated by her own Chancellor, Philip Hammond, to cost more than £1 trillion, and the UK Committee on Climate Change has estimated that to reach this target will cost us between 1 to 2 per cent of our gross domestic product every single year between now and 2050, which for Wales amounts to something like £2.5 billion a year. That's about a sixth or so of the entire Welsh budget. If this is going to be funded by putting imposts upon the price of electricity, that will directly affect the poorest and most vulnerable in society. So, where does that leave the Government's anti-poverty programme, and indeed its commitment to eradicate fuel poverty in Wales, on which it has spectacularly failed so far?