Queen’s Speech

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a vice-president of National Energy Action. Deciding on which day to speak in the Queen’s Speech debate was a bit tricky, as I wish to raise the Government’s fuel poverty strategy for England. That cuts across the areas of climate change, social justice, housing standards, health and funding. I first raised these issues over 25 years ago when I was in the Commons. Indeed, my Private Member’s Bill, which became the Home Energy Conservation Act, was designed to help Governments tackle these issues.

Sadly, we still have a huge problem and a high level of excess winter deaths due to cold homes, in spite of being one of the richest countries in the world. We still have many people with severe health problems due to cold, damp homes: 10.9% of households in England are in fuel poverty; 35% of fuel-poor households live in the private rented sector. This is proportionately higher than the percentage of private rented sector homes across England, at 20%. What is more, fuel-poor households occupy 58% of the privately rented properties which are classed as bands F and G for energy efficiency—the worst. On average, this group would require a reduction in their fuel bills of over £1,000 per year not to be classed as fuel poor. In the owner-occupied sector, we find 47% of fuel-poor households, and in social housing it is 18%.

In England, there are three main programmes related to helping householders pay their energy bills and install energy efficiency measures: the energy company obligation, which has £0.7 billion a year; the warm home discount, with £0.3 billion per year; and winter fuel payments of £1.8 billion a year. But three times as much money is spent assisting householders to pay their bills than to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. Furthermore, these funds are poorly targeted. The winter fuel payment goes to pensioners, yet 80% of fuel-poor households are not pensioners. Will the Government commit to increasing funds and retargeting them towards those most in need and, importantly, increasing funds focused on energy efficiency? This would be in line with their recent commitment to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

I note that the Conservative Party manifesto committed the Government to spend £9.2 billion to improve the energy efficiency of homes, schools and hospitals. While the Government’s Queen’s Speech programme includes an environment Bill and a renters’ reform Bill—both very welcome—there is no mention so far of issues pertaining to fuel poverty and the energy efficiency of our homes in these Bills.

The Committee on Climate Change has made recommendations on measures to improve the energy efficiency of our homes—a real problem, as we have a very high proportion of older properties—but targets have been missed. Do the Government expect to meet their 2020 milestone, as set out in the fuel poverty strategy of 2015, to ensure that as many fuel-poor households as is reasonably practicable reach the level of band E efficiency? Given that household fuel bills have risen by 40% in the last five years, and that the price cap introduced to close the gap between the most expensive and cheapest bills has led many suppliers to raise their average prices—particularly the big six, which make up a large majority of the market—tackling fuel poverty is as urgent as ever.

In those areas in the north that returned Conservative MPs at the recent election, this is a very real issue. As a resident of Berwick-upon-Tweed, I can tell the House that it is regularly 5 degrees colder, or more, in the north than down here in London—I come every week to get a bit of a warm-up.

There were several references to climate change and the 2050 zero carbon target in Tuesday’s debate on the Queen’s Speech. There was much concentration in those remarks on decarbonising fuel, with very little said about reducing the amount of power we use and making our buildings more efficient.

We have had various plans over the years to make our homes more energy efficient, but I have seen Governments duck getting to grips with this issue for nearly a quarter of a century. I have not been very optimistic about it—like the noble Lord, Lord Bates, I have B positive blood—but will I go on being disappointed, or will the new Government finally get to grips with an issue which is a disgrace in a country which is one of the richest in the world? I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Bates, in his very good speech earlier, give us a whole list of ways in which we are a very successful country, but we have not managed to crack this yet.