Fuel Poverty

Debate between Brian H. Donohoe and Roger Williams

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Roger Williams]

My hon. Friend is correct, and I shall come on to that later. Most houses in rural areas tend to have solid walls, and insulating them is much more difficult and much more expensive than dealing with properties with cavity walls.

Improving the poor quality has to be the focus of solving the problem. Investing in better housing should be the next Government’s top infrastructure priority and funds need to be found. The last Liberal Democrat conference passed policies to recycle carbon taxes for that purpose. Investing in better housing is also good for jobs and the economy, as well as having major health benefits.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, which is happening at a most appropriate time, given the problems that we face, which are about not only energy costs, but people staying in badly insulated housing. Is it not the case that public housing, as it was, was always better than the private sector for insulation? The U-values in public housing were much greater than they were in the private sector.

[Roger Williams]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, but I am not in a position to answer his question. I suspect that different local authorities might have had different standards in building houses. Whether they were better or worse than the private sector, I guess, depended on the developer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Roger Williams]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing that to my attention. I will move on to rural issues later, but certainly fuel-buying clubs have a big future in rural areas and make a real difference. One of the ways forward that I will be suggesting later is extending the gas main to ensure that other people have the opportunity that most people in towns take for granted.

[Mr Donohoe]

I am grateful once again to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but it must be put on the record that we can have long-term solutions to the problem, but we have immediate problems—problems right now. If one in five people are turning off the heating in their house, it is the case that either they heat the house or they feed the house. It is far more important to have that as the basis of a debate today on fuel poverty.

[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.