Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Social Justice – in the Senedd at 1:57 pm on 12 January 2022.

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Photo of Jane Hutt Jane Hutt Labour 1:57, 12 January 2022

Diolch, Sioned Williams, for that really important follow-up question, and, of course, it does apply to the importance of our Warm Homes programme, and since its inception in 2009-10 to the end of March of this year, more than £394 million has been invested to improve home energy efficiency through the programme in Wales, and that's benefited more than 67,100 homes, and, within this, more than 160,000 households receiving free and impartial advice, which has been a crucial part of it, to improve domestic energy efficiency and reduce fuel bills.

But we now, as you know, are consulting on the next phase of the Warm Homes programme. That was published on 22 December, and, importantly, of course, the draft budget, published in December, with a statement by the finance Minister yesterday, does include that increase of capital funding of £30 million, from £27 million in the last financial year, for energy efficiency measures for lower income households. It is important that we look to what has been achieved as well as ensuring that, as a result of experience and lessons learnt, we move forward and we get the full results of the consultation from the next phase of the programme.

I think that very much is linked to the fuel poverty plan, of course, with our advisory group, and I've already been mentioning the cold weather resilience plan, but I would also like to just say that it is important that we tackle this, recognising that the UK Government has got its part to play in this in terms of the cost-of-living catastrophe that we have in terms of fuel poverty. I and the Minister for Climate Change have written to Kwasi Kwarteng this week, expressing our deep concerns about the increasing domestic energy prices, the impact they're having on households in Wales, particularly concerned about lower income households, and the fact that we know those increases have come into effect and the fact that more households in Wales are going to be faced with poverty because of their policies. I'm sure that you will be discussing this later on in response to the report, and indeed other questions.