Fuel Poverty

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

In a speech on the same topic early in 2017, I said:

“We are in a cold homes crisis”.—[Official Report, 21 March 2017; Vol. 623, c. 822.]

Regrettably, that message remains. A large number of people in our society are living in fuel poverty, unable to live in a warm, dry home, tragically often resulting in excess winter deaths. Living in fuel poverty is miserable, for both the young and old. It increases anxieties and stresses and puts pressure on the already stretched NHS. According to the NHS, the current scale of the problems in England alone costs the health service approximately £3.6 million a day and results in 50,000 unnecessary deaths. The Government have a duty to ensure that everybody in the UK is living in a warm, dry home, and I am grateful for this opportunity to hold them to account on the progress—or lack of it—on tackling fuel poverty.

A year since the last debate, little progress has been made and the Government continue to miss the targets that they set. How did we get to the tragic point where, weeks before Christmas, millions of people will be vulnerable to having a cold, damp home? Under the Tories, we have seen a low-wage, low-productivity economy, with precarious working hours for millions of people, leaving them vulnerable. Coupled with that, we have seen a disastrous universal credit roll-out, forcing millions into food banks. Shamelessly, Tory Ministers have used opening a food bank as a photo opportunity recently, as though the increase in food banks were to be commended.

In my constituency, 41% of children are living in poverty, and the number of food bank parcels given out has increased exponentially. While many cannot rely on a decent pay packet, they are none the less met with increasing living costs. Under a Labour Government in 2007, we saw 2.5 million energy efficiency measures implemented in a single year. That number has fallen off a cliff. This Tory Government are failing those in fuel poverty, and they are failing the people of Britain.