WELSH Finance Minister Rebecca Evans has urged Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to maintain the £2,500 energy price guarantee in today’s Budget announcement.

She has spoken to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and written to the Chancellor setting out the measures the Welsh government wants to see.

“Maintaining the £2,500 energy price guarantee beyond April would be an integral part of this,” Ms Evans said.

“Our own Budget is worth up to £1 billion less in real terms in 2023 to 2024, so we need to see the UK government properly invest in public services in recognition of the erosive impact of inflation across the country.”

The Welsh government has also recommended that Mr Hunt’s Budget abolish standing charges on prepayment meters, increase local housing allowances, boost funding for discretionary housing payments and allocate more money for credit unions.

“The Chancellor has the powers to make better use of his welfare and tax levers to ease the challenges being experienced by households and businesses,” Ms Evans said.

In addition, the Welsh government is calling for improvements to welfare benefits, the abolition of the benefit cap and the two-child limit, the introduction of an additional one-off payment for people on all means-tested benefits and changes to the universal credit deduction policy.

It has also demanded that Westminster review its windfall tax, given the continued ability of energy production companies to retain much of their record profits.

Ms Evans argued that the Chancellor should use these resources to improve Britain’s energy security through investment in green energy and support for the steel industry to decarbonise and make headway out of the energy crisis.