As a named supporter of this Member debate, I want to place on record the work of Jack Sargeant in raising this very critical issue, as many have said, both in this place and beyond. And it is, as many have said today, the sick and the disabled and the elderly and the young who this issue impacts the most upon. It is a result of sheer profit over people, and it's the sick face of privatisation unregulated, with billionaire energy owners riding bareback on those who are most frail and vulnerable. Estimates suggest that up to 45 per cent of all households in Wales could be in fuel poverty following increases to energy prices and consequent budget impacts now.

The shocking revelations in The Times last month exposed that climate of fear, as many Members of this Senedd today have articulated, with people unable to pay their fuel bills, debt collectors let loose, as Jane Dodds and others have stated, and prepayment meters being forcibly installed. But the sheer scale and immorality—I'll use that really strong word, it is immorality—of this issue is so profound. My constituents, as Sioned has also said, tell me this weekly. Some 200,000 households in Wales are using prepayment meters for their main gas and electricity, and 45 per cent of social housing tenants are using prepayment meters.

I do want to thank Jack here for this campaign, and I also do welcome the work of Jane Hutt, Minister for Social Justice, who has called publicly for Ofgem to extend the ban on forced installation of prepayment meters beyond the end of March. We must, as Mike Hedges states, stop standing charges. Indeed, collectively, the Welsh Government has acted strongly in its united response, with £90 million to provide support to vulnerable households to meet rising energy costs, including a £200 fuel support scheme on top of the UK Government's fuel support payments. This has come from other Welsh Government priority areas. And further, to meet the need, social justice Ministers have secured an extra £18.8 million in the draft budget, increasing the total discretionary assistance fund for this coming financial year to £38.5 million.

But it is a source of sadness that this is needed today, as others have mentioned, in a G7 country where we as the UK are languishing at the bottom. It is imperative that the UK Government now step up to the plate and use those resources available to them for those in fuel poverty in Wales who have all been made poorer by each consequent action of this callous UK Government. I know that the Minister will continue to lobby the UK Government, Ofgem and energy suppliers to finally rise to the moment and fulfil their moral obligations to the poorest in society, but, sadly, until we get a Labour Government in Westminster, working with us, the Welsh Senedd, it will continue to fall on marble as ordinary people continue to freeze. I say, 'Shame on Ofgem', and I say, 'Shame on the UK Government.'