Thank you very much, Mark Isherwood. As I said in my statement, it is very clear that we are taking responsibility, and thank you for acknowledging that, and, indeed, for chairing the cross-party group on fuel poverty, which I attended pretty much every session held last year. But also, recognising that clearly, there are key responsibilities for the UK Government in terms of tax and benefits, and I’ll comment on those in a moment in response to your questions.

It has been really important that we’ve been able to use money that has been available to us this year for the Welsh Government fuel scheme, with extended eligibility. A considerable cost, but to hear that 290,000 payments of £200 are making such a difference, getting money into people's pockets—. But, clearly, the recent UK autumn statement didn't give us enough money for the Welsh Government to adequately help Welsh people who are facing the worst cost-of-living crisis in living memory. We continue, and I hope you will join us, to press the UK Government to provide additional funding to support households with this cost-of-living crisis.

I did feel it was an absolute priority, in terms of helping people through the cost-of-living crisis in the next financial year, that we maintained support for the discretionary assistance fund. The additional £18.8 million was an important addition to the draft budget, ensuring that people who are most severely impacted by the cost-of-living crisis can continue to access this emergency support. It is support that we have increased year on year during the pandemic, increasing flexibilities and increasing the allocation of that funding. I think, just if you look at the cost-of-living crisis in terms of access to the discretionary assistance fund, it is important just to recognise what this has actually meant, and will, of course, have meant to many of your constituents. If you look, to date in 2022-23, this financial year, more than 200,000 people have been supported by the fund, with over £23 million in grants, and those are awarded to those showing acute financial vulnerabilities. Over the Christmas period, figures are showing that during December alone 33,531 individuals accessed the DAF, with a further £2.36 million being awarded in cash payments. So, that additional £18.8 million in the draft budget is crucially important to meet those needs.

I am concerned about the fact that yesterday, as you know, in terms of UK Government changes, the new arrangements in terms of the energy bills relief scheme, moving to the new arrangements, being replaced by an energy bill discount scheme, are at a much lower level. Key issues raised by stakeholders, because there was an opportunity to respond to the consultation as far as this was concerned, and, indeed, the Minister for Finance and Local Government wrote to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury outlining our concerns: the scope and duration of the scheme, comparisons with support in other countries and also, looking at this, what impact it will have, going back to early questions in the Chamber from one of your colleagues about the impact on charities and the voluntary sector as well. So, it is key that we move forward and do what we can within our funding envelopes and also look at ways in which we can increase that uptake.

Now, you did raise a question about meetings with the energy providers and what we can do in terms of support. There were some positive responses from energy providers. Some of them said that they would share data with us in terms of the impact of people moving into a vulnerable situation and that they also would not move to prepayment meters without consent. We pressed hard, again, that they should meet the standing charges costs, and, indeed, this is something that I will take forward when I meet with those energy providers on 23 January.