Warm this Winter Wales

Ideas for political party manifestos ahead of a General election in 2024

The Climate Cymru network is made up of 370 cross-sector organisations and 15,000 individuals who are brought together by common values and a shared desire for urgent, fair action to address the climate and nature emergencies.

This document is a collection of suggestions from that network aimed at UK political party manifestos ahead of the next General Election. It covers a range of topics that will affect the people of Wales.

The points below were put forward by a diverse range of Climate Cymru partners as part of a consultation process. Whilst there is strong support for ensuring Wales’ views are considered by UK parties, and generally, broad support for most of the points, not all points are supported by all partners.

Energy Efficiency

• Commit to ensure all homes are well insulated within a decade, and provide funding to enable this, including increasing the devolved budget to enable delivery of a scaled up home insulation and energy efficiency programme which will offer considerable savings for both people and the public over relatively short timelines. 
• Publish the Heat and Buildings Strategy and fully engage the Welsh Government on next steps for the Heat and Buildings Strategy. 
• Introduce regulations to increase the energy efficiency of private sector rented homes to at least Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) C rating by 2028.

Renewables 

• Wales should benefit from energy projects on land and in Welsh waters. The Crown Estate is devolved to Scotland and, consequently, income such as from leasing the seabed in Scottish waters, is returned to Scottish Ministers. The Crown Estate benefits financially from Wales hosting offshore and marine renewables. There should be parity with Scotland regarding the status of the Crown Estate, with responsibility in Wales devolved to the Welsh Government. 
• Reform the National Grid so as to allow the facilitation of green energy. Welsh Ministers should have responsibility for all consent decisions for the electricity grid transmission network onshore in Wales.
• Agree a strike price for electricity from a test tidal lagoon project in Swansea bay in order to develop green tidal technology in Wales.
• Funding to be made available for localised storage and transmission to feed into the Grid and for communities to benefit from it directly.
• A new UK Government fund to develop innovative community led approaches to decarbonisation in Wales.
• Create access to low interest loan finance for community energy projects for renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable transport projects. 
• The participation of communities in the energy market is restricted by excessive costs and an unwieldy regulatory process. The UK Government must directly engage with community energy projects in Wales to understand the difficulties they face connecting to the grid and to explore how access to the grid for community energy projects can be improved in Wales.
• Create funding for micro-grids and a whole systems approach – community energy, heat, retrofit all at the same time.
• Communities should be directly consulted on the benefits they would like to receive. A starting presumption should be introduced that a proportion of all future energy projects must be partly community-owned or provide direct benefits to the community which hosts the energy project and associated grid infrastructure, such as reduced energy bills. This is starting to happen in Wales. 
• Encourage the UK Government to reduce tariffs (in a WTO compliant manner) on environmental goods and services to support the global expansion of renewable energy, recycling, sustainable agriculture, and other green activities.  

Net Zero

• Improved Net zero plan at UK level to support an urgent and just transition. For the UK Government to support the efforts of the Welsh Government, and not seek to water down commitments.
• Investment from the UK Government for transforming Tata Steel in Port Talbot.  It would require investment in electric arc furnaces that would recycle steel.
• Green Jobs Transition Fund, so that workers in carbon heavy jobs are supported when they adapt to working in the green economy.
• UK Government to provide Wales with adequate (EU) replacement funding and for that funding to be allocated directly to the Welsh Government to invest on priorities, including the transition to a zero-carbon economy, which have been developed and agreed with our Welsh partners from the higher and further education, local government, business and third sectors, and will benefit all parts of Wales. 
• For the UK Government to ensure future trade deals do not restrict UK or Welsh Government policy space and freedom to regulate in devolved areas related to climate change, and do not contradict Welsh duties under the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.
• For the UK Government to ensure that businesses and industries based in Wales continue to be eligible for any future Climate Change Agreement scheme beyond March 2025. 
• We need to see increased funding of key programmes, including the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund and the Clean Steel Fund, to enable new technologies and fuel switching to be adopted (as is happening in many other countries). 

Fossil Fuels

• Funding support from the UK Government to aid in the restoration of opencast mining sites or legislation to enforce payment from mining companies, especially for opencast sites for which the UK Government gave permission.
• An end to all new onshore or offshore coal, gas and oil.
• Remove the statutory duty of the Coal Authority “to maintain and develop an economically viable coal industry”. The UK Government should revise the Coal Industry Act in order to reflect the need for the Coal Authority to consider climate policy in its decisions, and provide the certainty that will allow the Authority and the industry to focus on areas that will benefit people and businesses, such as the extraction of renewable/ geothermal heat from existing/ disused mines. 
• Impose a genuine windfall tax on energy companies’ profits, and scrap incentives to scale up the extraction of fossil fuels. 

Social Justice/ Cost of living

• Establish a system for the administration of benefits in Wales to make the series of devolved grants and allowances that exist here work better, by bringing them together into one cohesive system. We endorse a Senedd Committee call for the following to be considered –

– Payment flexibilities within Universal Credit, so that people in Wales can choose to have more frequent payments, direct payments to their landlord, and split payments between couples;

– The devolution of Housing Benefit for specific groups of people (which is delivered outside of Universal Credit);

– The devolution of the assessment process for sickness and disability benefits, to align with Welsh health and social care policies and laws, and

– The devolution of the sanctions regime.

Further research is needed on the system in place in Scotland for the administration of benefits, and work towards proposing a Welsh Benefits System as proposed by the Bevan Foundation. 

• End the unfair penalty some areas of Wales pay due to the Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) charging more for the same energy than in the rest of the UK.  
• Use resources from any energy windfall tax for the retrofitting of homes, the creation of jobs in this area/ energy efficiency measures in UK homes.
• End the forced installation of prepayment meters, and to demand that the UK Government legislates so that energy companies must change their practices, and strengthen regulatory powers. Introduce a social tariff, and expand the definition of vulnerability.
• Ensure Wales gets its fair share of funding based on need, as households in Wales are hit hardest by the energy crisis.