Fuel Poverty

Annette Brooke Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Roger Williams]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that is a debate to be had, but successive Governments have been putting off taking the tough decisions that need quite a large amount of expenditure and that would make a real difference to the problem. Yes, we have to deal with the situation of pensioners and families as they experience it today, but we also must look to the future.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that we should not forget a significant minority, which is those who live in park homes? They struggle because they have to pay for a share of the electricity and it is very difficult to be included in schemes because of the construction of the properties. These really are people on low incomes.

[Roger Williams]

My hon. Friend has a great record of campaigning on behalf of park home owners. Indeed, in Wales, through the Welsh Government, legislation has been brought through to support park home owners. One issue is how the people who live in park homes are charged for energy and water and what the owner of the park takes as a percentage of the charge made to the residents. My hon. Friend has done an enormous amount of work on that.

In terms of prices in the UK, I accept that lower prices are always welcome, but we must recognise that the Department of Energy and Climate Change quarterly energy prices update shows that in 2011 the cost of a unit of domestic electricity in the UK, including taxes, was the third lowest in the EU15 countries. Similarly, the cost of a unit of gas was the second lowest in the EU15. Buying a unit of energy in the UK is cheap by international standards. What makes the bills expensive—the bills are the key issue—is that we have to buy so many units because our houses just do not keep the heat in.

Only when we look at housing quality do the reasons for our fuel poverty problems become clear. EUROSTAT conducts an annual survey about “Statistics on Income and Living Conditions”. That includes a question on whether households live in a dwelling with a leaking roof, damp walls, floors or foundations, or rot in the window frames or floor. Such substandard homes may be hard to keep warm, as well as presenting a health risk to the occupants. On that, the UK ranks 11th out of 15, with almost 16% of households in leaky homes. Finland is at the top of the table with just 5.7%. However, a second indicator shows that even UK homes without leaks or damp lose more heat than those of most of our neighbours. The amount of heat that a wall allows to escape is measured by using what is known as a U-value. Data from the Buildings Performance Institute Europe data hub show that homes in the UK are further from the optimal U-value than those in almost every other country for which figures are available. We come seventh out of eight countries.

There is a real warning in these figures for politicians of all parties. Talking big on price cuts may be popular, but they will not solve the problem of fuel poverty. A politician without a serious plan to improve housing is very unlikely to be serious about tackling fuel poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Williams]

I am grateful for that provocative intervention. I will not join the hon. Lady. I actually aspire, like the hon. Member for Ynys Môn, to a cross-party approach to the issue. The Prime Minister and my party leader made various comments before the general election, many of which have been or are being delivered on, through the green deal. However, I do agree with the hon. Lady that we must be even more ambitious and take the agenda forward, so there is partial agreement.

The Energy Bill Revolution campaign, in whose measures I am particularly interested in this debate, calls for revenues from two carbon taxes—the EU emissions trading scheme and the carbon floor price—to be invested in a widespread energy efficiency programme in the hope of eliminating poverty. The campaign believes that investment in improving the energy efficiency of the UK’s leaky homes would save the average family money, provide the jobs mentioned by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) by developing the green economy, and boost growth. Incidentally, it has also undertaken polling that suggests that it would be a popular form of investment. Most people feel that it would bring them more benefit than some of the more controversial road or rail projects.

What makes the debate even more timely, especially for Wales, is the fact that figures released last week indicate that in Wales, fuel poverty has increased by 13% over the past year and that, more worryingly, more than one in four families with dependent children are fuel-poor. Families are struggling to keep their homes warm at a reasonable price due to our poor housing stock, as has been outlined. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow alluded to work done by Barnardo’s; I concur with that work. Barnardo’s and the Children’s Society support the Energy Bill Revolution. The Children’s Society found, in a survey of 2,000 children across the UK, that about 28% of them thought that their homes were too cold, and this winter more than 3 million families are likely to have to cut back on essentials such as food to pay their energy bills.

Some good moves have been made, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage). One of those was the warm home discount introduced in 2011—inadequate in its coverage, of course, and not enough, but important to many. It required the big six to provide £135 towards energy bills to low-income, more vulnerable households. Low-income pensioners are in the core eligibility group. However, energy companies can use criteria to decide whether struggling families qualify. It is scandalous that although it may be known that a family are struggling, they may still not get that support. I endorse the Children’s Society’s call on the Government to ensure that no household is without a warm home discount if it is known that there is a child living in poverty there.

Will the Minister consider encouraging companies to extend the eligibility criteria for a warm home discount so that poorer families are automatically included? Perhaps that would be families who receive extra child tax credits, or households earning less than £10,000. The Government have done wonderful things on tax thresholds for those earning less than £10,000, and have taken many people out of tax altogether. The additional action that I suggest is something immediate and pertinent that could be done. Does the Minister have any dialogue with energy companies, or does he plan to have any, about extending the criteria for the warm home discount to working families in which there are children living in poverty? That would help many of my constituents.

I want to mention some local initiatives. The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) spoke about the need to develop bulk-buying oil syndicates; 70% of my constituency, including my house, does not have access to mains gas, and I wonder what the Department of Energy and Climate Change is doing to support the development of such syndicates, for domestic oil in particular. There have been schemes in the past. I think that a predecessor of the Minister’s alluded, in a letter, to a competition; I think it is less a question of a competition than of a drive to encourage the development of oil syndicates. I declare an interest, because my family is the beneficiary of one, organised by an inspiring lady, Jane Wakeham, in the village of Llanddewi Brefi. She has built an oil syndicate for her community; we have talked about the big society, but I think that that initiative was always there. What should the Department do to encourage the development of such syndicates? We need them on a much bigger scale, not least in my area, which is off-grid for gas.

I was delighted, for cold homes week, to visit two projects in my constituency that do fantastic work to help my constituents make the most of the energy on which they spend their hard-earned money. One is Ymlaen Ceredigion, a charity that runs the Keep Cosy initiative in conjunction with Ceredigion county council and Aberystwyth university. It gives residents free advice in a home visit, pointing out ways to minimise energy consumption, including through draught-proofing, energy monitors and radiator backing, and signposting them towards energy schemes. Funding to enable 400 households to benefit has been secured, and built into the project is the expectation that the information on energy conservation will cascade down to other families. I also visited Cymdogion Cynnes—the Ceredigion Warm Neighbour scheme—which aims to help residents by collating all information on available energy grants and schemes in one place. That is a valuable resource; we hear time and again that lack of access to information about schemes is a barrier. That county council project is most welcome.

I was sitting at home on Sunday evening and the telephone rang; it was an automated message offering me a free home insulation service. I was supposed to press 2 on the telephone and an agent would enlighten me and my wife about the benefits on offer. I am not sure where that came from, or whether it was from green deal operatives; perhaps the Minister or his shadow would know. I await enlightenment. It is a good, proactive way to deal with things, but it makes the point that people need to know where to get information, or, in my case, where it is coming from.

[Annette Brooke]

I agree with my hon. Friend that small community initiatives are incredibly important. The point has come my way that some older people, who could have free loft insulation, cannot face dealing with the loft to make it possible; we need voluntary bodies on hand to help and make things easier—and to explain that perhaps it will not be the upheaval they imagine.

[Mr Williams]

I agree. Elderly people are one of the target groups that we want to approach, and briefings from Age Cymru or Age UK make that point strongly. What my hon. Friend says is important; somewhere along the line, more of a one-to-one dialogue will be needed to get those people engaged in schemes.

I want to reiterate the point that the hon. Member for Ynys Môn made when he talked about his passion for getting people on to mains gas. As I have mentioned, 70% of my constituents do not have mains gas in their homes. People talk about swapping suppliers, but we are limited in our choices and there is a need to renew work on that. I am sure—or I hope—that DECC is undertaking such work. I was in the main Chamber earlier, and in a discussion of energy policy in the nations of the UK, the Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), pointed out that there is a need for that renewed emphasis, particularly for rural areas and people who do not have the range of choices that many others have.

The Government have undertaken some good initiatives, and the hon. Member for Ynys Môn was big enough to acknowledge that. We must build consensus on some of those; that is what the campaign that I am associated with is about, and the number of organisations that have joined the Energy Bill Revolution campaign is relevant to that. I want a renewed vision for rural areas. If the Minister will answer me on one matter, perhaps it could be the development of community oil syndicates. I feel strongly about that, because it is a good and proven way for consumers, in the absence of choice, to get something approaching justice in relation to the bills that they pay.