Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Law Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Chris Law (Dundee Central) (SNP)]

1. What recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of fuel poverty.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

18. What steps his Department is taking to tackle fuel poverty in winter 2024-25.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Miatta Fahnbulleh)]

The previous Government’s record on fuel poverty was absolutely woeful, and we have had to inherit an incredibly challenging trajectory. We are doing everything we can to shift that by upgrading homes for families in fuel poverty, driving up standards in the rental sector so that we lift 1 million people out of fuel poverty and supporting over 3 million households with our warm homes discount, all while running with our mission for clean power.

[Chris Law]

Despite Scotland being one of the most energy-rich nations in Europe, decades of mismanagement by different colours of UK Government—whether Labour or Conservative—have led to a shocking one third of households in Scotland living in fuel poverty. That number is set to rise, along with energy bills. The Government were elected on Labour’s pledge to cut energy bills by £300, but yesterday the chair of GB Energy admitted that that was “not in its remit” and was completely unable to say when bills would come down, alleviating fuel poverty. If this is not another broken promise from the Prime Minister, can the Secretary of State confirm exactly when in this parliamentary term consumers in Scotland will see that reduction?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Fuel poverty is devolved in Scotland. The Scottish Government have had the opportunity to make a dent in this problem for almost 20 years and they have not. Even now, as we are ramping up upgrades to help people with fuel poverty, the Scottish Government are raiding more than £200 million from retrofitting funds that could help families today. I will take no lectures from the hon. Gentleman on how we tackle this problem.