I'll start, as we always tend to in these debates, and thank the Chair for his expert way in how he chairs our committee, as well as all the work the clerks do as well, and in particular the evidence we received from various stakeholders and community action groups. I'll highlight the Caerau and Ely action group, much like the Chair did, and refer to their point around it only being of benefit if you know about it. I think that's a vitally important point. It links with my previous contribution relating to broadband social tariffs. But it also highlights the need to raise awareness of what is available to people. And of course, I fundamentally think people should receive what they're entitled to anyway as a default.

But if I could start with businesses. It is no secret that the cost-of-living crisis is tearing through Welsh high streets as warnings of a lost generation of small and independent businesses continue to loom large. The impact of soaring inflation and skyrocketing energy prices has been felt by traders, many of whom have been forced to close their doors for good or are considering doing so. The cost-of-living crisis is running in tandem with a cost-of-doing-business crisis—something that is well documented in our committee's report. Prices are surging for business at the same time that working people are having to reduce their spending. It’s very much a double-whammy.

It’s worth noting here that this spending by working people isn’t for luxuries either—many can’t afford the necessities. The considerable increases in fuel poverty, predicted to follow the energy cap rise in April, whereby 45 per cent of Welsh households are expected to contend with grinding fuel poverty, are expected to coincide with possibly the biggest fall in disposable income since records began in the 1950s. On top of this, many businesses are still recovering from the pandemic. I mentioned small, independent businesses and it’s these that are being hit the hardest in certain sectors. The Federation of Small Businesses reported that there has been an average gas bill hike of 250 per cent for small businesses and that 96 per cent of these are concerned about their rising energy bills.

Energy-intensive industries are also suffering—not just the ones that immediately come to mind, such as steel, but also ones that I’ve been vocal about, such as breweries and hospitality. For example, Bang-On Brewery, a local brewery in my region, in Bridgend, have seen their bills increase in an eye-watering way. For example, they've seen a 549 per cent increase in their new utility contract; a 68 per cent increase in their new premises lease; a 165 per cent increase in brewers grain since the beginning of 2021, with a further 70 per cent increase being introduced in January 2023, and an 80 per cent increase in vehicle running costs in the past year. If you add all that up, just to stay where they are, they will need to find an additional £198,000 after tax to survive. Under those costs, the new trade price of a bottle of beer would have to be £12.53 per bottle plus VAT. I don’t know many people, if anyone really, who would consider paying that for a bottle of beer.

Costs such as these are just some of the myriad ways that this crisis is debilitating an already hamstrung hospitality industry. Sectors like hospitality, retail and tourism are hypervulnerable to people’s discretionary spending. The report notes that sectors under significant pressures are at an increased risk of offloading cost-of-living pressures onto employees. Many working in sectors such as hospitality will have no collective bargaining beyond zero-hours contracts or no written contracts, and working hours that can be confirmed, cancelled or changed at the whim of a text message or phone call.

The executive director for Wales of UKHospitality has said that 13,000 Welsh jobs are at risk if there is no help for the industry. And from this, we can see the cyclical nature of this crisis. The cost-of-living crisis and the cost-of-doing-business crisis are intimately bound up with each other and its impact on working class people is devastating. Livelihoods are at stake.

Something noted by the Trades Union Congress in the report was the lack of an adequate understanding of these levels of precarity, and they’re absolutely right. In-work poverty, low pay and insecure employment are no longer marginal or provisional in certain sectors—it’s simply a fact of life for many. Not only does it serve to bring about a plague of mental health struggles, for many workers it can also have the effect of naturalising some of the dire employment conditions. People are having to work longer hours, some taking multiple jobs for less and less money. I spoke to a constituent at the surgery in Caerau on Monday who is working three jobs at the moment and yet still only had £3 to her name on Monday.