Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

16. What assessment he has made of changes in the level of fuel poverty since 2010.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

17. What assessment he has made of changes in the level of fuel poverty since 2010.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)]

The latest annual fuel poverty publication estimates that during the first year of the coalition Government, fuel poverty fell by 500,000 to 3.5 million households in England. It is projected that the number of households in fuel poverty remained the same in 2011, but may rise again in 2012.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gregory Barker]

We are working collaboratively with local authorities up and down the country, which have a key role to play in delivering the green deal and ECO. It is by an area-based, street-by-street roll-out, rather than by chasing gas prices, that in the long term we will deal with fuel poverty once and for all.

[Alex Cunningham]

My local borough, Stockton-on-Tees, is a national leader in tackling fuel poverty—we have had a warm zone initiative, a go warm campaign and now a hard-to-heat homes campaign—but it takes real investment to make these things happen. Energy companies are using consumers’ money to promote and install energy efficiency measures, but why will the Government not do the right thing and restore Government investment in energy efficiency measures, instead of leaving it to expensive loans that will cost consumers more than they might save?

[Gregory Barker]

By and large, consumers and taxpayers tend to be the same people. We are determined to get far better value out of our energy poverty eradication programmes than the previous Government did, and we will demonstrate that by getting more measures taken for less and bringing in competition. The green deal will, for the first time, let the fuel poor make real choices, as opposed to the monopoly one-size-fits-all solution of the previous Government.