Before we start the debate, I would like to say something about the exceptional heat. I am content for Members not to wear jackets or even ties in Westminster Hall. Mr Speaker has announced similar arrangements for the Chamber. When the House returns in the autumn, Mr Speaker and the Deputies will expect Members to revert to wearing jackets and will strongly encourage male Members to wear ties when speaking in the Chamber and Westminster Hall. I call Ruth Jones to move the motion.
That this House has considered the impact of the cost of living crisis in Wales.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Ms Nokes. Thank you for the warning about the heat. I am grateful for the opportunity to lead the debate on behalf of the many families in Newport West who have written to me, called me and messaged me with their stories, experiences and fear for the months and years ahead.
I was elected to the House three years ago. In that relatively short time, despite the devastating pandemic and all the pain associated with it, until now I have never seen such worry and fear in the eyes of my constituents. I am so angry that they have been forced into that position by the actions of this 12-year-old Tory Government. Let me be clear: this is a cost of living crisis made in Downing Street. The biggest challenge facing us all is that we have a caretaker Prime Minister who is more focused on hosting parties than attending Cobra meetings, and more focused on holding power than using power. He is so evidently uninterested in ensuring that the people of Newport West, of Wales, and across the United Kingdom have the support they need and the good government they deserve.
I have shared this story before, but it speaks volumes to the challenge that the cost of living crisis has placed on people in Newport West. My constituent says this:
“Thank you for responding to my e-mail Ruth Jones, these are my concerns. We are in a position right now where we’re not coping. Our energy bills have risen 54% and I am afraid that myself and many others will not be able to provide for our families. My husband’s parents are on a state pension of £82.45 a week, we are concerned for their welfare as they cannot afford to heat their home nor pay for food if these energy prices continue. Many of my friends are concerned for their own families too, we are all struggling, and instead of living, we’re surviving day to day. If these prices don’t change, we must have an increase in the minimum wage.”
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. She is making an excellent speech. I am going to hold cost of living crisis workshops throughout Cardiff North, such is the scale of worry and concern from constituents writing to me time and again. Does she agree that this is because of the inaction and complacency of this Government, who have failed to deal with the crisis?
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. The workshops sound an excellent idea. People are desperate and need such ideas. She is quite right that the obvious inactivity of the Government is the problem. This debate today is not about party politics or short-term political gain; it is about people’s lives. It is about housing, food, and the ability to have the fan on and be able to pay the bill. It is about survival.
Another Newport West resident wrote to me:
“I have one daughter, 12 years old. I am in full time employment and on benefits. I have cancer. Even before the surge in energy prices many people like me have been struggling to afford the essentials. The cost of weekly food shopping has risen, so has the cost of energy. My rent also increased recently. I have had to make cut backs on most things.”
Like colleagues across Wales, and indeed the House, I came into politics to make Newport West, Wales and our United Kingdom a better, fairer and more equal place to live, learn and work, and that remains my single focus. I hope today to give Ministers the chance to tell us how they can help us make life better for the people of Wales, but I am afraid that the response from Conservatives in Westminster and in Cardiff Bay to their cost of living crisis has been nothing short of insulting. They are out of touch, out of ideas and now out of time.
We cannot wait another day to act, because local people are worried about paying their bills and looking after their families, and have no basic survival abilities. At the same time, Ministers seem to be seriously suggesting that the answers to the challenges facing local people are dodgy loans and Tesco value products. The only conclusion I can draw from those suggestions is that the Conservatives are living on another planet. Although we are pleased to see the back of the caretaker Prime Minister, the current contest for the leadership of the Tory party means that we have no real Government in power. No decisions are being taken and there is no ambition for the people of Wales. There is no commitment to addressing their needs and no plan to get our country out of this mess.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising prescriptions. Does she agree that, had the UK Government delivered on their pledge last year to introduce hormone replacement therapy for one annual payment, women in England would not face the pressure of choosing between feeding their children and paying for their HRT prescription?
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Prescriptions, medicines and HRT are so important to people—[Interruption.] Absolutely, they are free in Wales.
The average band D council tax bill in England is £167 more than in Wales. Even with the UK Government’s recently announced council tax rebate, households in Wales still pay £17 less than in England, which shows that people are better off with Labour.
People being better off with Labour is further exemplified by the Welsh Government’s £244 million council tax reduction scheme, which helps more than 270,000 households with their council tax bills. Although the crisis is real, the Welsh Labour Government are stepping in and stepping up. That helps people in Marshfield, Rogerstone, Pill, Caerleon and right across Wales.
The crisis of food poverty is continuing to grow across the United Kingdom, which is why the Welsh Labour Government committed to provide free school meals to all primary school pupils. An extra 196,000 primary school children benefit from that offer, which shows how the impact of the Tory cost of living crisis can be mitigated by Labour in power. The Welsh Labour Government announced in December 2020 that free school meals would be provided through the holidays to children in Wales through to Autumn 2022, and the First Minister committed to further widen access to free school meals overall. This Tory Government have had to be forced, shamefully and repeatedly, into U-turns by Marcus Rashford’s campaigning and the votes of Her Majesty’s Opposition in Parliament.
As I have said in the House before, the people of Newport West are looking for help. The caretaker Government have no plan to help people with heating their homes, filling their cars with petrol or feeding their families. Last year, I spoke in this House about the 9,000 families in Newport West who had their universal credit cut, and since then I have seen for myself the devastating impact that decision had on families in Newport West and across Wales.
I will focus today on the structural issues that face Wales, and ask what the UK Government do for Wales in policy terms. I very much believe in being part of the United Kingdom—I believe that together we are stronger—but we can use that power in ways that can be influential and really benefit every single person.
In the last 12 years, we have seen a massive growth in inequality in this country. We have seen the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; we see that in the millionaire lists and in the people turning up at food banks. So what do we need? We need a tax policy that is redistributive, whereby those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden. What have the Government done? Well, they have put in some immediate support for the time being, but it is a stop-gap; it is not changing the system or the way we redistribute our money. They did that because Labour said, “Look, come on, you need to have a windfall tax. You need to get that money and redistribute it from the oil and gas companies, and make sure it goes into the pockets of people who are facing those enormous bills.”
Let us look at some of the taxation policies that we have had from this Government. There has been the raising of the threshold at which people pay income tax. In principle, that sounds a very good thing, but it is not the most effective way of using that money, because everybody benefits, up the whole scale; it wastes quite a lot of money on people at the top of the scale. By contrast, if we put in targeted support at the bottom, as tax credits were designed to do, we can get a lot more value for our money through redistribution and achieving equality.
What about VAT? One of the things we suggested could have been done this year was taking VAT off energy bills. Back in 2008, Labour reduced VAT from 17.5% to 15%, but now it is obviously up at 20%. VAT is also a very regressive tax, because everyone pays it; it is not a way to redistribute wealth.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) on securing this important debate. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), who made several important points regarding the situation we find ourselves in, most notably that it is the product of several failings over many years. I thank her for referencing some of the issues that rural communities face with the fuel and energy crises. That is something that I will focus on in my speech.
We have had a few opportunities in recent months to debate the impact of the rising cost of living on households and our communities. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Newport West for securing this debate, because it allows us to focus on the impact it is having in Wales. As has already been mentioned, the April increase of 54% to the price cap has already caused a lot of concern and misery for households across Wales. I note that, as we debate today, there is speculation that the cap might rise again, in a few months’ time, to more than £3,000, with further increases expected when it is reviewed in January next year. That coincides, of course, with inflation soaring to a 30-year high and the UK facing the biggest fall in living standards since records began.
It is sobering to reflect on the fact that, following the April price cap review, the Welsh Government found that some 45% of households in Wales would fall into real fuel poverty. I shudder to think what the situation will be this autumn, when there will be increases in both the price cap and the demand for fuel to heat the winter months.
It is worth repeating a few of the statistics, just to give the background to the severity of the crisis. Domestic gas prices increased by 95% between May 2021 and May 2022, while domestic electricity prices, as we have already heard, rose by some 54%. In nominal terms, last April’s price cap increased the maximum for average bills from £1,277 a year to £1,971. Just last May, the chief executive of Ofgem said that he expected the price cap to rise by a further 40% in the autumn, to around £2,800. Perhaps demonstrating just how volatile and unpredictable the situation is, analysts now suggest that, rather than £2,800, the autumn price cap increase will actually surpass £3,000. If that happens, the price cap will have more than doubled in the last two years. That is why I think it is important that we discuss the sufficiency of the Government’s measures to date.
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Nokes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) on securing the debate, and it is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake).
It is also wonderful to see so many Welsh Labour colleagues present for this important debate. That is a testament to the proud and long history that Labour has and will continue to have in the Senedd and among the Welsh electorate more widely. I note that a considerable number of Welsh Conservatives are absent this afternoon—I cannot possibly think what is distracting them at the moment.
The shambolic Tory leadership might be a priority for some, but I remain focused on the issues that keep coming up when I speak to constituents across Pontypridd and Taff Ely. The single issue impacting people the most is without doubt the cost of living crisis, which is putting working families on the brink. The crisis is hitting every single corner of the UK, but it is right to have a debate about Wales specifically.
In this place, we often talk about the north-south divide in England, but the complex situation across Wales is all too often forgotten in that narrative. Recent research by the Centre for Cities think-tank shows that regions in Wales are among the hardest hit by the cost of living crisis across all the devolved nations. Research by the University of Bristol suggests that 22% of Welsh households are in severe financial difficulty, meaning that they are forced to do things like buy lower-quality food, shower less and even sell their belongings just to make ends meet.
In my constituency of Pontypridd and Taff Ely, the local Trussell Trust food bank in Treforest has had to extend its opening hours simply to deal with the swelling demand for its services. Only last week, Wales Online reported that some food banks in Wales are on the brink of running out of food. Demand is sky-rocketing, but the generous donations that food banks depend on to function are drying up, because people can no longer afford to donate and are themselves feeling the pinch. The teams running the food banks do incredible work in extremely difficult circumstances, but it does not have to be this way, and it should not be this way.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)
Will the hon. Lady say where the Welsh Government got the money from for those schemes?
It is not for Wales to come cap in hand to a Government in Westminster for what is rightly ours. We pay tax in Wales too and we are meant to be part of this United Kingdom. This is our money—we are not begging or asking for it. People in my constituency and across Wales are entitled to this money to help themselves. If the Minister will allow me, I will come on to the fact that in the recent uplift by the previous Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), people in Wales got the equivalent of £9 a head, which is shocking and is nowhere near the amount of money that they need to survive the cost of living crisis.
We have done everything we can to empower local authorities such as mine to mobilise resources at a local level. The Welsh Government have held two cost of living summits attended by Welsh Government Ministers and key stakeholders from across Wales. Those events allowed grassroots organisations to directly inform the Welsh Government about the impact that the crisis is having on communities. In turn, they allowed the Welsh Government to target support at those most in need. I pay tribute to all involved in those summits for their incredible efforts to help the people of Wales.
Let us be clear that those measures pale in comparison with what the UK Tory Government have the economic firepower to achieve if only there was the political will. In Westminster, the Tories are completely asleep at the wheel. While the leadership contest continues to take centre stage, everyday working people and families will continue to struggle. Good governance starts at the top, which is why I am genuinely proud of the work that Mark Drakeford and the team in Wales are doing, despite the situation in Westminster.
Ultimately, people in Wales, including me, are tired of false promises. As we all know, the UK Government are the absolute kingmakers of gaslighting and U-turns. I cast hon. Members’ minds back to the spring statement, which I mentioned. The then Chancellor briefed the press that he was set to announce bold measures to support people through the cost of living crisis. He promised an increase in Welsh Government funding of just £27 million over the next year, which, as I stated, amounts to £9 a person in Wales.
20 of 68 shown
That is just one example of the constituents’ emails that I get every day.
That inaction stands in stark contrast to the decent and pragmatic leadership of the First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford. The Welsh Labour Government are not just on the side of the people of Wales; they spend every day doing what they can to mitigate the impact of the Tory cost of living crisis. They have taken a number of steps, which I am sure other hon. Members will mention. In addition to those things, free prescriptions continue to help people across Wales to keep more of their hard-earned money. I note that prescriptions in England under this Conservative Government are currently £9.35 per item.
It is not just universal credit: older people and pensioners are at the sharp end of the Tory cost of living crisis, and they urgently need the Government to act. Pensioners spend twice as much on their energy bills as those under 30, and face spiralling inflation, with the prices of petrol, food and energy all soaring. Let us not forget that almost one in five pensioners now lives in poverty.
Our young people are facing the fierce winds of this crisis, with low wages, rising rent and the cost of living going through the roof. My constituent Bobbie said this:
“Hi, Ruth Jones. I would just like to ask a question, see if you can help. I work 2 jobs most weeks between 50 and 60 hours per week just to live. I get paid minimum wages for both jobs. My current outgoings are £1,200, and there is not much left when I pay the petrol, the electricity and done my food shopping. Where is the help for people like me?”
Bobbie is right. Where is the help for people like her?
I pay tribute to some of Britain’s largest charities, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Fuel Poverty Action, which have formed a new campaign coalition—Warm This Winter. The coalition is calling on the Government and all those who seek to lead the Government to support plans to prevent a catastrophic winter energy crisis. Although we currently face record high temperatures, in just a few months families will be struggling again to heat their homes. Let us not forget that all this shows how much the impacts of the climate emergency can affect all parts of our lives.
Rather than help those in need, what are the Conservatives doing? They have whacked up national insurance payments at the worst possible time, hitting working people hard. And let us not forget how Welsh Conservative MPs have used their place and their votes in this House: they voted to cut the £20 universal credit uplift; they voted against free school meals for children during school holidays; they voted for the increase in national insurance contributions; and they voted against a windfall tax. I suspect that the people across Wales, from Delyn to Clwyd South and from the Vale of Glamorgan to Bridgend, will be very clear about their views, needs and wants come the general election that our country desperately needs.
We live in difficult times, but for all the global forces facing us and the world around us, ultimately we need our Government to act, and to act now, because the cost of living crisis is costing livelihoods, costing lives, and costing businesses in Wales and across the UK. Enough is enough—we cannot waste any more time. My message to the people of Wales is simple: help is on the way with a Labour Government, and the sooner the better for all of us.
Let me turn to the national income insurance hike, which hit people who are working, but did not tax unearned income . Again, that is not a helpful way of taxing people. That is not to say that we do not need money; of course we need money for the health service and the care service, but the way we raise it matters. Our cost of living crisis goes back to some of those fundamentals.
I will move on now to the Department for Work and Pensions. We all know that the transition to universal credit has produced all sorts of anomalies and difficulties. The five-week wait has put families into debt. We are not against the idea of reform or of trying to simplify the benefits system, but I wish this Government would get away from demonising people who have to claim benefits.
Who benefits from the DWP? Well, pensioners take the bulk of the money from the DWP. Then, of course, there are people who are working—lots of people have to rely on top-ups, even though they are working—so they are not in any way to be demonised. Then there are genuinely disabled people, and then there are people who have to claim money to help with their housing costs. Why are we in that situation? It is because we have got rid of so much social housing at low rents, so we now find that lots of public money goes straight into the pockets of landlords. Those eyewatering figures do not go to the people who have to make the claims; they go to the landlords. Until the Government get a grip and have a massive housebuilding programme, we are obviously going to be wasting money in that way and leaving families in often unsuitable accommodation. We need to sort out what is being done with benefits and the tax system.
Let me move on to what has gone on over the last 12 years with public sector pay. If we squeeze and squeeze, is it any wonder that we now have a crisis when inflation suddenly picks up but wages have been on hold for years? We have an incoherent policy; the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) threw out a figure of 7%, but the minute he became Chancellor he changed his mind. We cannot have a half-baked system. We have to talk in the round about having a proper public sector pay policy. The problems have been stacking up; they have not suddenly arisen. This Government have not handled the economy or the redistribution of wealth well.
I turn to my favourite topic: energy policy. If we had invested in all the renewables that we should have done over the last 12 years, we would not be so dependent on imported oil and gas. What is this nonsense where, yet again, in the energy security strategy for 2022, the Government are pussyfooting around when it comes to wind farms in England? Luckily, we have a sensible policy in Wales.
It was disappointing to hear the Minster, at the Welsh Affairs Committee, not fully understand the implications of the National Grid situation. I hope he now understands the need for massive investment right across Wales, and between Wales and England, so that we can benefit from being the United Kingdom and all share our energy pools. We really need a strategy for energy and investment, on a wholescale basis, and not leave it to a private company to see whether they fancy it or not. We need a strategy that supports innovation, such as we have seen in the tidal lagoon, which is now being supported by Labour-run Swansea City Council, rather than having had help from the UK Government.
I will finish with a point about dealing with rural areas. As we know, rural areas have particular difficulties in that they have a limited choice of fuel that they can use to heat their homes. Many are dependent on oil, for example, and have seen prices rocket, with no help available. Then there are the massive mileage costs that people in rural areas clock up when they have to go to the shops or to work, or to take the children somewhere; and the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) asked whether there could be some support to help people in those areas through sensible, centrally thought-through policies that could redistribute and help areas with massive inequalities.
On that note, I will leave other colleagues to tell the terrible and heartbreaking stories that we have all heard recently. I ask the Minister: when he is thinking about which candidate he supports in the Conservative leadership contest, will he put to them the questions of how we change the structure to have an equal and fairer society?
As the hon. Member for Llanelli mentioned, in so far as the price cap offers any solace to households, it is only for those connected to the mains gas grid. Sadly, some 72% of properties in my constituency of Ceredigion are not connected to the mains gas grid. We have the unenviable accolade of being the UK constituency that is most dependent on domestic heating oil. As has already been mentioned, the prices for off-grid heating oil and gas are not regulated by Ofgem, so they have increased to astronomical levels. Indeed, average heating oil prices increased by 150% in the past year and by some 250% over the past two years.
Without wanting to labour the point, rural households have particular challenges when it comes to heating their homes. Some are structural, and one of the things that I would like the Government to address before this autumn is standing charges. Wales is particularly badly served by typical standing charges. In April 2022, the daily cap rose by 94% in south Wales—the figure in north Wales was 102%—to a daily rate of 46p. Since April, daily rates for my constituents in Ceredigion are on average about 50% higher than those levied in London. It does not matter how much they use. and it does not matter if they save—that is the daily standing rate.
That is a particular challenge when we consider that most of the housing stock in my constituency performs very badly when it comes to energy performance certificates. Indeed, some 36% of homes in Ceredigion reach an EPC rating of C or above. It is perhaps not surprising that we do so badly when we consider that 35% of our homes were constructed in the 19th century. It is staggering that the vast majority of the housing stock that will exist in 2050 has already been built, and over a third of it was built in the Victorian age.
The reason that I draw attention to that is that, when we talk about energy efficiency measures, off-grid homes and old homes are particularly difficult to bring up to standard. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has estimated that 20% of off-gas grid homes are technically unsuitable for low-temperature heat pumps, one of the major policies of this Government.
Furthermore, the heat and buildings strategy assessment has suggested that the average cost to retrofit an off-gas grid home is around £12,000. However, if we include insulation, which we really need to do, that adds a further £2,000. That is the average figure quoted in the heat and buildings strategy, but a lot of analysts suggest that for certain rural off-grid homes, the cost could be a lot higher. Yet the Government are not providing those homes with enough support or important interventions to help make them more energy efficient. Furthermore, typically—not always, but typically—a lot of off-grid homes are in rural areas, which tend to have lower salaries. That is certainly the case in Ceredigion. We are, therefore, hit with many different challenges that we cannot overcome without Government support.
To summarise the challenges faced by my constituents and the severity of the situation, many have contacted me in recent weeks to say how they are taking extraordinary measures to try to keep their energy bills down. I have been told of people turning the boiler off so that they can save a little bit on that, having cold showers, turning their freezers off and saving on electricity by avoiding meals that need to be cooked in the oven. I do not need to point out to hon. Members that that will result in them making more use of microwaves, with the knock-on impact of typically less healthy meals. The most striking example was of a family telling me that they had bought solar-powered garden lights so that they can use them for indoor lighting in the evening, such was their concern about the electricity bill.
It is not just households that are being affected by the cost of living. I know of businesses and community organisations that are struggling, including to keep swimming lessons going in the community swimming pool. One hospitality business has quoted that energy bills have gone up by 450% in the last 18 months. Sadly, it is having to consider difficult decisions about whether it can continue to operate and stay in business.
I want to finish by referring to another problem we are facing in Wales and in rural Wales: the cost of fuel. We know that Wales is the most car-dependent nation of the UK, with some 83% of journeys being taken by private car as opposed to other means of transport. I would very much like it if, in the near future, the public transport infrastructure in Wales and in Ceredigion was such that we did not have to depend on the car. However, at the moment, many of my constituents simply do not have the choice. I want to put this point on record: we are not saying, as is sometimes suggested by colleagues elsewhere in the UK—though not in Wales, I should add—that car journeys are somehow a luxury. That is not the case. These are car journeys to go to work and to access services and healthcare. They are unavoidable journeys, and due to a lack of alternative options they are very vulnerable to the price increases in petrol and diesel.
I draw attention to one of the impacts that that has on public services. While this can be true across Wales, carers and district nurses in rural areas have explained to me that they will typically drive anything between 400 and 600 miles a week just to care for the residents on their rota, yet they are still having to pay astronomical prices at the pumps. I had a conversation with the previous Exchequer Secretary, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), about the possibility of extending the rural fuel duty relief scheme to parts of Wales. Areas such as Ceredigion satisfy all the criteria, barring the fact that we fall within a hundred miles of a refinery. As the Competition and Markets Authority review found a few weeks ago, there is no real link between higher fuel prices at the pumps and proximity to the refinery. Actually, the major drivers are to do with competition, the volume of sales and the models of garages locally. We need to look at extending the rural fuel duty relief scheme to areas such as Ceredigion so that, if nothing else, we have a bit of consistency and there is not a situation where there is a 4p or 5p difference between prices in Aberystwyth and those in Cardigan to the south. That is a cause of considerable frustration.
What about some solutions? We have already heard about the Government’s £400 payment to households. Is that still sufficient, given the changes to the onward forecast for the energy price cap? I have some particular questions for the Minister, and I will be grateful if he addresses them in his summing up. We are still unsure whether the £400 energy rebate will apply to those living in park homes or on farms without a domestic electricity contract. I know that the Government are looking at that, but I impress on them the urgent need for clarity.
On short-term measures—I will not go into the long term—I think we need to look again at restoring the £20 uplift to universal credit, removing the two-child limit and increasing social security in line with more recent inflation figures, all of which are recommendations made by the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs in a recent report. I would also like the Government to increase the eligibility of those who can claim carer’s allowance better to reflect the true number of people providing vital care. Also, perhaps most boldly, if as has been reported the energy price cap exceeds £3,000, the Government need to consider whether they ought to intervene more directly to limit price rises, as other Governments in Europe have done. I have to say, in closing, that constituents across Ceredigion simply cannot afford any further dithering or delay.
The reality is that without proper, long-term investment from Westminster, people in Wales will continue to be impacted. I know some Members will disagree with my assessment and will be keen to point out that any support failure is that of the Welsh Government, but I must be frank. I speak on behalf of residents in my area when I say that this UK Government have never taken their responsibility to Wales seriously. It is the UK Government’s failure to recognise that wage stagnation and ineffective social security have now led to poverty and destitution, and that could have been avoided.
According to the End Child Poverty coalition, in Pontypridd and Taff Ely a staggering 31.3% of children were below the poverty line in 2020-21. That is almost a third of all the children in my area. It is a sharp statistic and one that all of us in modern-day Britain should be embarrassed by. However, let us be clear: with food banks running dry and the Welsh Government doing everything they can, without immediate action by the UK Government, living standards across the country will continue to fall.
In Wales, local and regional bodies have done everything to address the crisis. The Welsh Labour Government and my Labour-led council in Rhondda Cynon Taf must be commended for their work to relieve the pressures on households. The Welsh Government have committed more than £380 million to address the immediate and severe impacts of the cost of living crisis on low-income households in Wales. From the winter fuel support scheme to income relief for those on council tax bands A to C, Welsh Labour has worked tirelessly to fill the vacuum of support caused by UK Government inaction.
It should shame the UK Government to treat us in Wales with such contempt. They try to palm off responsibility to the devolved Administrations, but refuse to properly fund their efforts. The Welsh Government have moved heaven and earth to mobilise their considerably limited resources, yet the Tories in Westminster refuse to act. It took relentless pressure from Labour for the UK Tory Government to eventually—reluctantly—endorse a windfall tax on North sea oil and gas, or, as the then Chancellor insisted we call it, because he cannot even admit that it was Labour’s idea, the energy profits levy. But they should have implemented it months ago and, for many, the support that the windfall tax will fund will simply be too little, too late.
The Welsh Government have announced that the Welsh fuel support scheme will return this winter to help those in need by providing a one-off £200 payment for their bills. That will bring significant relief to tens of thousands of Welsh residents, and I welcome the commitment of the Minister for Social Justice last week to support people who will struggle this winter. Without UK Government support, however, that will still not be enough.
When I wrote this speech, four candidates remained in the Tory leadership contest; now we have three. To the best of my knowledge, Wales has not been mentioned once—not by a single one of them. It is clear that whoever wins the leadership will continue to forget about Wales and that, sadly, it will be a case of business as usual.
Despite the Welsh Government’s limited resources, their actions show that Labour will always stand shoulder to shoulder with the country’s most vulnerable. The cost of living crisis is not going away in Wales or across the UK, so I implore the Government to do the right thing, to take responsibility, to see the crisis for what it is and to act today to reach solutions.