Fuel Poverty

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

As always, it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sheridan. I had anticipated that this debate would be more heavily subscribed, but I am sure that what we lack in quantity, we will make up for in quality. I know that some members of the Environmental Audit Committee who would have been anxious to take part are away on a Select Committee visit.

The main focus of my remarks is the report by the Energy Bill Revolution, which finds that the core of the problem of fuel poverty lies with the poor heat efficiency of our housing stock. For many years, it has been more important to put a roof over people’s heads than to provide a warm home that is well insulated. That comes from a time when energy prices were cheap and carbon emissions were not considered to be a problem. Even if we build 200,000 new homes a year of good thermal efficiency for the next 15 years, 90% of the houses we live in by 2030 will have been built before 2014, and most of them will have poor thermal characteristics.

I congratulate the Energy Bill Revolution for assembling such a powerful group of charities, companies, disability groups, environmental groups, trade unions and trade associations to tackle this important issue. I also wish to congratulate it on highlighting the matter during cold homes week.

The causes of fuel poverty are a complicated nexus of poorly insulated homes, rising fuel prices, low incomes and limited accessibility to the cheapest fuel and best tariffs. The Energy Bill Revolution rightly focuses on retrofitting substandard properties. We have a large legacy of poorly insulated properties in this country. Such is the backlog of that essential work that, if 600,000 houses were treated every year, it would take until 2027 to deal with 90% of the homes.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that there is a need for local authorities to insist on proper energy efficiency measures in any new build?

[Roger Williams]

My hon. Friend is completely right. The regulation and specification for energy efficiency in new houses today is to be welcomed. Some of us believe that a higher degree of that could have been aspired to.

The Energy Bill Revolution is calling for the revenues from two carbon taxes—the EU emissions trading scheme and the carbon price floor—to be invested in a massive energy efficiency programme that would eliminate the scourge of fuel poverty once and for all. Compared with much of Europe, the UK has a bigger fuel poverty problem because of our poor quality housing.

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[Roger Williams]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. I do not underestimate the effect that fuel poverty has on families. It is particularly troublesome that children are drawn into this problem. There will be ways in which we can deal with the immediate issues. The purpose of this debate, as I see it, is to find a much more long-term approach to the problem that will get rid of fuel poverty for ever, rather than mitigating it as it appears.

[Guy Opperman]

On that point, does my hon. Friend agree with me that the progress in, for example, Northumberland, where we have 13 oil-buying clubs, providing more than 1 million litres of oil and a 10% to 20% discount for off-grid customers, and the role of the Church and credit unions in assisting those who need finance for off-grid supplies are the sort of long-term solutions that we need to reduce prices and generally address the problem?

--- Later in debate ---

[Roger Williams]

My hon. Friend has a great record of campaigning on behalf of park home owners. Indeed, in Wales, through the Welsh Government, legislation has been brought through to support park home owners. One issue is how the people who live in park homes are charged for energy and water and what the owner of the park takes as a percentage of the charge made to the residents. My hon. Friend has done an enormous amount of work on that.

In terms of prices in the UK, I accept that lower prices are always welcome, but we must recognise that the Department of Energy and Climate Change quarterly energy prices update shows that in 2011 the cost of a unit of domestic electricity in the UK, including taxes, was the third lowest in the EU15 countries. Similarly, the cost of a unit of gas was the second lowest in the EU15. Buying a unit of energy in the UK is cheap by international standards. What makes the bills expensive—the bills are the key issue—is that we have to buy so many units because our houses just do not keep the heat in.

Only when we look at housing quality do the reasons for our fuel poverty problems become clear. EUROSTAT conducts an annual survey about “Statistics on Income and Living Conditions”. That includes a question on whether households live in a dwelling with a leaking roof, damp walls, floors or foundations, or rot in the window frames or floor. Such substandard homes may be hard to keep warm, as well as presenting a health risk to the occupants. On that, the UK ranks 11th out of 15, with almost 16% of households in leaky homes. Finland is at the top of the table with just 5.7%. However, a second indicator shows that even UK homes without leaks or damp lose more heat than those of most of our neighbours. The amount of heat that a wall allows to escape is measured by using what is known as a U-value. Data from the Buildings Performance Institute Europe data hub show that homes in the UK are further from the optimal U-value than those in almost every other country for which figures are available. We come seventh out of eight countries.

There is a real warning in these figures for politicians of all parties. Talking big on price cuts may be popular, but they will not solve the problem of fuel poverty. A politician without a serious plan to improve housing is very unlikely to be serious about tackling fuel poverty.

[Guy Opperman]

My hon. Friend has not mentioned thus far the green deal, which, as part of the coalition’s policy, is one of the finest things, and one of the things of which I am most proud, in terms of improving housing stock on a very cost-efficient basis that addresses both energy efficiency and environmental concerns.

[Roger Williams]

I thank my hon. Friend for picking me up on that. The green deal is indeed a very important part of the coalition’s policy. Figures show that more and more people are making use of green deal assessments. Indeed, some of the companies providing those assessments are not charging for them, but see that as an opportunity to suggest ways forward that will improve the environment of the house. As I understand it, though, some of the green deal finance is not taken up. Some of the green deal recommendations are put into practice without taking up the green deal finance.