Fuel Poverty

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hamilton, and to take part in this debate. I commend the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry)—I think that I have pronounced his constituency correctly—on securing it and on bringing a human element to the discussion. That is what we are all interested in: making a positive difference and improving the human condition. That is, I hope, the primary objective of Members on all sides of this Chamber. It is also very much at the heart, and in the spirit, of what the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey said in his opening remarks. It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who picked up on that theme and focused the debate firmly on the need to look after our most vulnerable constituents.

In the last Parliament, we had debates on fuel poverty but we often got bogged down in definitions, which was sometimes helpful but sometimes unhelpful. There has been some difference historically across the United Kingdom, between the devolved Administrations and the UK Government, on how fuel poverty is defined. Generally, it is when more than 10% of someone’s income is spent on an adequate heating regime, but there has been some concern about how to define a “heating regime”. I believe that has led to a more complex formula, based on the Hills review, which will now be put in place generally to define what is meant by fuel poverty.

So far in this debate, we have not got bogged down in the exact definition of fuel poverty—if we had been, it would have detracted from the point because we are talking about the living conditions and the social circumstances of some of our most vulnerable constituents: people with mental illness, pensioners on fixed incomes and, very often, people who are unemployed. We are also talking about people who live in what is often some of the most challenging housing, in that it lacks good insulation and good home energy efficiency measures. Much of that is in the private rented sector; the housing of many people living in fuel poverty is from the private rented sector. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will address that issue in her remarks.

However, it is worth highlighting that we have made some progress in addressing fuel poverty. The figures that I will cite are for England. As of 2013, the huge number of 2.35 million households in England were regarded as being in fuel poverty. Nevertheless, that is a fall from the number for 2010, which was 2.49 million. So progress has been made in reducing the number of households in fuel poverty, and that progress is welcome.

Commendable improvements have been put in place thanks to Government initiatives to improve energy efficiency across the country, with 3.8 million lofts and 2.1 million cavities being insulated through Government schemes since March 2010. The Government have a right to be proud of that record, but clearly there is still a lot more to do. In that context, we should recognise that there are 6 million households with a low income that have an energy efficiency of band D or lower, but as of July 2015 only 1.6 million energy efficiency measures had been installed in about 1.3 million of those homes. There are still many more homes in fuel poverty that we need to help, and many more people in those homes who need help to reduce their energy bills and to ensure that they can make ends meet.

I will touch briefly on the green deal, because the concept was a good one. However, the green deal was difficult to understand and often difficult to communicate. In helping people to tackle high energy bills, perhaps one of the issues—there may be lessons to be learned from Scotland in this regard—was that local authorities were not as proactively engaged in the process of delivering the green deal as they were in the delivery of more successful schemes, nor as proactive as local authorities in Scotland were in the delivery of the green deal. Perhaps we should reflect on that when we consider how we can support measures for households in fuel poverty in the future. Nevertheless, the concept behind the green deal was good.

Where are we now? A commendable initiative has been put in place. I believe that by 2018 rented homes will need to have energy performance certificates of band E or better, which will place a strong requirement on landlords to improve the energy efficiency of their properties and help to improve some of the least well insulated homes. Of course, that will also help the people living in those homes to reduce their home energy bills.

There is clearly a requirement on Ministers in the Department for Communities and Local Government to work collaboratively with the Minister who is here today and support her in ensuring that this important initiative, which will help to better insulate some of the worst insulated homes, is enforced, and so that DCLG puts pressure on local councils, which I believe can keep the income from any fines imposed as a result of the initiative, to enforce fines on landlords who do not comply with this requirement. This initiative can make a real difference to some of the most fuel-poor homes in the country.

We also have to encourage a more active engagement, perhaps through citizens advice bureaux and other organisations, from energy consumers who live in poorer homes. Notwithstanding the good point of information made about some of the challenges in highland and island homes, we know that the consumers who are more engaged with energy switching on the internet, often more affluent than other consumers, have often benefited from the energy market. However, there has been a challenge in ensuring that market competition reaches and benefits some of the people in fuel-poor homes and some of the most vulnerable consumers.

I wonder what the Minister’s thoughts are about addressing that issue, and whether there may be some initiatives that her Department is considering to support and work with the CAB or other organisations to take this process forward. The energy market can work and deliver lower bills for consumers, but we know that it has not worked effectively and efficiently for the most vulnerable consumers. I am sure that we would all like to see that situation change and that there are mechanisms to achieve that change. Partnership with local authorities, as well as with the CAB and other voluntary organisations, may well be a way of better engaging consumers and helping to deliver the benefits of the energy market to the most vulnerable in our society.

Finally, I will speak briefly on the issue of rural communities, which was outlined very articulately in earlier contributions about highland and island communities—some of the most rural communities in the United Kingdom. However, there are also many constituencies from Cornwall to Suffolk to Lincolnshire—indeed, throughout the United Kingdom—that have remote rural energy consumers. Those consumers are often off the gas grid and reliant on other mechanisms to heat their homes.

In particular, there is a challenge for those consumers who rely on oil; I believe that 8% of consumers in rural areas use oil to heat their homes. The price of kerosene has dropped recently, which has been beneficial for those consumers, but we know that there are huge fluctuations in the cost of heating homes through oil and kerosene. I would be grateful to hear my hon. Friend the Minister’s comments about how we can support those consumers who rely on oil and off-grid consumers in general. Perhaps we could examine the issue of biofuels and consider how its use can be better supported in the years ahead.

There are some positive things: fewer households in England were suffering fuel poverty in 2013 compared with 2010. However, there are still a number of issues to consider, which are related to how we can better engage and better support vulnerable consumers, particularly in rural and remote areas. I look forward to hearing my hon. Friend the Minister’s response to the debate.