A WELSH Government minister has hit out at the UK government over its inaction as the cost-of-living crisis deepens.

With Ofgem’s announcement to lift the energy price cap, Minister for Social Justice Jane Hutt has hit out at the inaction of the UK Government and their failure to support the most vulnerable with the cost-of-living crisis.

Justice Jane Hutt said: “We’re in the midst of a crisis. Hundreds and thousands of families right across Wales and the wider UK are facing the biggest fall in living standards since records began.

“The projections for those who will be plunged into poverty are unforgiving and all the while we are faced with the unacceptable three-pronged chaos of a failing UK government, a cruel price cap increase and the record profits of oil and gas giants.

“While oil and gas giants bathe in record profits from shaking down customers and revelling in government support packages, the UK Government fails to even acknowledge an emergency budget is necessary.

“People across Wales need support now.

“We need an emergency budget, we need to freeze gas and electricity prices immediately and we need to tax the oil and gas giants making record profits.”

Reiterating the call to deliver a package of support for the most vulnerable, the Minister added: “Welsh Government Ministers have consistently called on Westminster to take several measures that will help support people during this crisis. We’ve called for the introduction of a lower price cap for low-income households, we called for a significant increase in the rebate through schemes such as the Warm Homes Discount, to restore the £20 uplift in Universal credit and uprate benefit payments for 2022-23 to match inflation rather than using the September 2021 CPI figure of 3.1%.

“Our actions go some way to addressing the serious problems the most vulnerable in our society are facing, but unfortunately, these calls have fallen on deaf ears.

“The continued inaction by Westminster carries the real risk of consigning the people of the UK to a decade of poverty. This cannot be allowed to happen.”