Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Social Justice – in the Senedd at 1:54 pm on 25 January 2023.

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Photo of Jane Hutt Jane Hutt Labour 1:54, 25 January 2023

I thank you for that question, and I would also like to recognise and congratulate Jack Sargeant. Jack Sargeant has called over the past few weeks consistently for a ban on the forced installation of prepayment meters, and it is also a ban that I have endorsed and also raised with UK Ministers.

I have met with energy providers. As I just said, I met with them again on Monday, and the first thing I said is how appalled we are about, of course, the revelations about the ways in which court warrants are being used—I know there's a topical question about this—to force people to install prepayment meters without any permission from the customer. I said to them again that we cannot accept that this is the right practice. These are the most vulnerable people, in terms of prepayment meters. I've already mentioned that there's a low uptake of prepayment vouchers for traditional prepayment households—a 72 per cent redemption figure recently quoted by Ofgem. But, I also raised with them the importance that we should now move towards a social tariff, which, of course, would mean that we would address some of the issues relating to the most vulnerable customers.

Again, I've mentioned the fact that we've got our partnership with the Fuel Bank Foundation. Already, we've got about 70 partners signing up with them. I recall the question, Sioned Williams, about, perhaps, not all foodbanks knowing about it. We have spread that word. I've met again, actually, just this morning, with the End Child Poverty Network, the Trussell Trust, Children in Wales and Child Poverty Action Group—all of the organisations working with us on our tackling child poverty strategy—to make sure that people do take up our Fuel Bank Foundation prepayment vouchers. But, yes, we need to look, and I continuously look, to what we can do with our powers to actually work with and support the most vulnerable, the poorest.

I'll just finally say what I said on Monday to the energy providers: 'Stop making these standing charges'. This is absolutely critical. One told me that they didn't make the standing charges. They should all be in that position, and I'd be grateful if we could have support on that across the Chamber. Standing charges are being made even if people actually are not able to access energy as a result of a lack of money or vouchers to feed the meters.