5. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the impact of the rising cost of living on people in Clwyd South? OQ57861

Llywydd, the cost-of-living crisis is affecting people across Wales, including in Clwyd South. Tomorrow’s spring statement must include actions to provide help for those least able to manage the crisis in the most essential aspects of daily life, widening access to food and to fuel for those who otherwise will be forced to go without.

Diolch, First Minister. And you will be aware, I'm sure, of data from the 'Crunch Point' report from Citizens Advice, which shows that 14.5 million people—one in five people in Britain—won't be able to afford their energy bills when prices rise in October, just as we enter winter. And by then, a single person in receipt of benefits will be spending up to 47 per cent of their universal credit on energy bills. Households on prepayment meters will be particularly hard hit, and so, of course, children, the elderly and disabled people are likely to face the harshest of winters unless action is taken.

First Minister, no Government should allow its people to freeze or starve, but that's exactly what's going to happen unless the Prime Minister and the Chancellor take immediate and dramatic action on energy costs. And I'm concerned that those who are struggling should not stay hidden, away from view, or deprived of essential support. First Minister, are you aware of what data is collected by energy companies regarding self-rationing of energy supplies, or indeed self-disconnection?

Well, Llywydd, I thank Ken Skates for that powerful additional question. Of course, he is right: in the spring statement tomorrow, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has an opportunity to do those practical things that would make the biggest difference in the lives of those people who need that help the most. My colleagues Jane Hutt and Julie James wrote, together, to the Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy back on 11 January, with six different practical actions that the UK Government could take that would lead immediately to relief for people who face the greatest challenge.

But, Llywydd, Ken Skates has identified, to my mind, one of the most concerning sub-groups within that population: people who rely on prepayment meters for their energy supply. The latest figures that I have suggest that prepayment-meter users will be spending £10 every day to top up their meter. If you're a single person living on benefits, you have £77.29 for the whole of the week for absolutely everything. So, they will not be paying £10 a day, they will be going without. That is the only way that they will be able to manage. Their bills will be rising from £1,309 currently to £2,017 after April.

And I'm afraid the answer to Ken Skates's question is that there are no figures kept of people who self-disconnect. For far too long, the energy companies have sheltered behind the comfortable fiction that people reliant on prepayment meters choose to disconnect, whereas we know perfectly well that it's the only way in which they are able to manage. And people face a very, very bleak winter in those circumstances.

Llywydd, some years ago, when I was involved in some university research on this matter, I was involved with the Fire Brigades Union, which published a report into child death numbers—child deaths caused by people forced to self-disconnect because they couldn't feed the meter, who used candles in bedrooms, where curtains caught fire and children died. You know, that is the circumstances in which many families in Wales will find themselves again after next month. If there's anything more urgent on the Chancellor's table, it's hard to imagine what it could be than making sure there is proper help for families facing those very, very bleak choices.