Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Social Justice – in the Senedd at 2:09 pm on 4 May 2022.
Thank you for that very constructive question, Sam Rowlands. You will be aware that we held a cost-of-living crisis summit in February. I chaired it, along with the Minister for Climate Change, who spoke about the challenges in terms of housing and energy efficiency and the investment that's gone into the budget for this year in terms of supporting energy efficiency and boosting renewables, but also in terms of energy sources. And also there was my colleague Rebecca Evans, who is Minister for Finance and Local Government. So, we discuss these issues. It is a cross-Government responsibility in terms of tackling fuel poverty, our Warm Homes programme, which of course we are now concluding in terms of the consultation that we've undertaken. These are all crucial to tackling the cost-of-living crisis, but what we need is the funding to support us to do that, and that's where I hope you will be calling on the UK Government particularly to get that funding from a windfall tax to ensure that we can invest more in terms of energy efficiency and also reduce the fuel bills of those who are going to be at the sharp end of the cost-of-living crisis.