Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Social Justice – in the Senedd at 2:17 pm on 8 June 2022.
Diolch yn fawr. It's a really important question. I think you will recall a powerful exchange between the First Minister and Ken Skates a few weeks ago about the impact of fuel poverty, and the fact that people may be self-disconnecting in terms of pre-payment meters. So, I'm glad that you've brought this to our attention. The theme of my questions today has been very much the impact of the cost of living and fuel poverty—the cost-of-living crisis and the impact it will have on fuel poverty. So, thank you again for giving that information. We've been urging Ofgem to give us the information about the estimates in terms of self-rationing. They do actually suggest 34 per cent of smart meter households are self-disconnecting and 13 per cent are regularly reliant on emergency credit. But I think we all know of those who are the hardest hit and also pay more for pre-payment meters. Now, this is something that we are looking at, and I recently visited a Blaenau Gwent foodbank, where they actually also have a fuel voucher scheme as well for pre-payment meters. It's crucial that we do everything that we can and look at every avenue for supporting those 200,000 households on pre-payment meters for electricity and gas.