Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Trefnydd and Chief Whip – in the Senedd at 2:41 pm on 18 September 2024.
Thank you for that question, and it is important that we look at our Warm Homes Nest scheme, as I’ve already mentioned—£30 million a year to tackle fuel poverty for home owners and households renting from private landlords. Because this is where eligibility, again—. And I think it’s important that we do recognise that there are many people who are not eligible for pension credit, and that’s where we need to reach out to those people. But these eligible households, to access that Warm Homes funding, they can get a bespoke measure of packages to insulate, decarbonise their homes, leading to a reduction, because this is about reducing energy bills, moving people out of fuel poverty.
And also—and I know the First Minister mentioned this yesterday— something not happening in England, we provide funding to the Fuel Bank Foundation, and that’s a fuel voucher and heat fund scheme for those in fuel crisis, for people, not just people who are on prepayment meters, but people who are off grid. So, we have a responsibility—and I hope it’s shared across this Chamber—to actually promote access to these other benefits. And I look forward to actually meeting with the cross-party group—the fuel poverty cross-party group—very soon, and I’m sure the chair, Mark Isherwood, will be pleased about that.
But we have to look again at all the other benefits. We must reach out to ensure that, in our Welsh benefits charter—which is our way of actually developing a compassionate, person-centred delivery of benefits that we’ve got some control of—we can maximise household incomes.