Fuel Poverty

Ian Blackford Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hamilton.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), which is the neighbouring constituency to mine, for securing this important debate. It is important, as other hon. Members have said, with millions of households around the United Kingdom being affected by fuel poverty. As I look around Westminster Hall on the day when the Scottish National party has its Supply day and a number of SNP Members are heavily engaged in the main Chamber, I am glad to say that there are seven SNP MPs here out of a total of 12 MPs. One has to ask the question, “Where is the Labour party?” It is missing from the debate in Scotland, having let the people of Scotland down, and its MPs cannot even be bothered to discuss this important subject, which affects constituents throughout the rest of the UK. It is no wonder that the people of Scotland have fallen out of love with the Labour party in our country.

I will deal specifically with fuel poverty in the highlands and islands. I am grateful to Changeworks, which has estimated the percentage of households in fuel poverty in that region. It bands each locality in the highlands into groups, and by its calculations there is no district in my constituency that has less than 47.9% of households in fuel poverty. In a number of districts, fuel poverty is evident in at least 73.5% of households. The Highland Council states that the context is that

“the Highlands and Islands of Scotland experience the harshest climatic conditions in the UK and record levels of fuel poverty”—

levels that are unprecedented. It goes on to say that

“there is far greater, area-wide dependence on the use of electricity for heating as well as lighting but the standard unit price charged is 2p a kw/hr more than in most other parts of the UK and 6p and more for the various ‘economy’ tariffs on offer”—

a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey made earlier. The council continues:

“On top of all this there is also a far greater reliance in off-gas areas on using domestic heating oil and solid fuel which pushes up household heating costs further still.”

As someone who lives in a rural area, I can say that it is one thing to rely on electricity coming through the grid, but having to check the oil tank frequently and ensure that there are adequate supplies of solid fuel is a different matter. According to the council:

“As a result, domestic energy bills in off-gas areas are, on average, around £1000 more per annum than the £1369 pa dual fuel national average (2014)”—

that is the cost of living in many of our rural areas, and wage levels in rural areas are often considerably lower than in more affluent parts of the country. It continues:

“To cap it all, customers on prepayment meters (often the least well off) not only have to pay additional standing charges but also discover that their notional right to change to a cheaper electricity supplier has become impracticable.”

Those statistics should shame us all.

Let us put the highlands and islands in context with the rest of Scotland. The fuel poverty level in Scotland in 2013 was 39% of households. A key driver for the rate of fuel poverty has been the rise in fuel prices. The fuel poverty rate for 2013 would have been only about 11% if fuel prices had risen in line with inflation between 2002 and 2013.

One of the most fundamental questions that we must ask the Minister is: why do we have to accept that there are 14 regional energy markets in the UK, with consumers in the highlands and islands, who are some of the greatest users of energy in this country, paying that premium of 2p per kilowatt-hour? We must have a universal market throughout the UK. If it is good enough for postage stamps, we should have one for electricity distribution too, and that is in the gift of the current Government. I asked the Secretary of State a written question to that effect not so long ago, and I was amazed that the response was that consumers in other parts of the country would have to pay more. The point that that answer seems to ignore is that such a market would introduce fairness, and no more would consumers in the highlands and islands be discriminated against by a Government who want to penalise them for living there.

That is not acceptable, and it must end—it should end tomorrow. Why do folk in my constituency have to accept higher rates of fuel poverty? The Government can act, must act and should act, and they should do it now. Why do the Government not invest in greater measures to deliver effective insulation and ensure that we can cut energy bills and fuel poverty? We can find the money for Trident, but not to allow folk to live in properly insulated, warm, fuel-efficient homes.

[Alan Brown]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We all came out of the Trident debate this afternoon disappointed by the vote. Home efficiency is a serious matter. Home efficiency measures bring people out of fuel poverty, but they have the added effect of wider benefits, because less energy usage drives down the market cost. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should rethink their strategy regarding the £12 billion subsidy they are creating for the right to buy? That money would be better invested directly in new build housing and home efficiency schemes for existing owners, which would also help our constituents by driving down market costs, and the Barnet consequential would allow the Scottish Government to continue their excellent work.

[Ian Blackford]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I must contrast the Government’s performance and behaviour with that of the Scottish Government on house building and home insulation over the past few years. It really is about time that the Government in Westminster stepped up to the plate. In light of the upcoming climate change talks, we have a responsibility to cut our energy consumption as far as possible, and we can do that if we invest more in insulation.

Research by Turn2us graphically shows the kind of challenges that those in fuel poverty face. The research found that one in two low-income households struggle to afford their energy costs, despite being in work. Those are people who will be disadvantaged by the cuts to tax credits that my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey mentioned. Turn2us states:

“Amongst the hardest hit are people with disabilities, with over two in three (67%) reporting their struggles, and families, with almost two-thirds of working parents (65%) unable to meet these costs. Worryingly, of those households who are struggling with energy costs, nearly half (48%) have done so for more than a year”—

this is a long-term, not a short-term, problem. Turn2us continues:

“The knock-on effect is severe, with a third (33%) forced to skip meals and over a fifth (21%) experiencing stress and other mental health problems.”

Is it a price that we as a civilised society are prepared to pay, that people in this country have to make the choice between food and fuel? There is something wrong with our country if that is the case.

Some of the comments made by people who participated in the Turn2us survey are stark. They include, “The bills are killing me, sometimes I have to contemplate paying all the rent or heating my home”; “There are many pensioners like myself who don’t qualify for any help but still have to decide whether to eat or heat”; “We have stress, debt, arguments and a low mood at home”; “Starve or freeze? Either way you get ill and can’t work, eat or pay any bills”; “No lights, only candles, only hoover once a week, only use washing machine once a week, no heating, meals that cook quickly.” Those are the consequences of the high levels of fuel poverty we suffer from in this country.

The Scottish Government have used their powers to intervene to mitigate some of the effects of rising energy costs, but it has been the failure of Westminster, and of the regulator, to properly protect consumers that has led to marked deterioration in the level of fuel poverty. The Scottish Government are committed to tackling fuel poverty head on and ensuring that everyone in Scotland lives in a home that is warm and affordable to heat. However, those measures are undermined by austerity made in Westminster and delivered by a Conservative Government who are having such a huge impact on low and medium-income earners. That goes to the heart of the issue. There is evidence that families have to make the choice between heating and feeding.

There is not just a moral and ethical impact of that but a cost to society, with increased health costs as a consequence of the mental health issues that arise. Also, children are being sent to school in less than ideal circumstances because of family pressures, and our young people are not flourishing to the extent they should, which increases the burden to close the attainment gap. That is the social cost of fuel poverty, and the Government in Westminster have to accept responsibility for it. The proposed cuts to tax credits and other welfare cuts have caused concern that low-income, hard-working households’ finances could be harder hit. The Government must change tack in the autumn statement tomorrow.

[Fabian Hamilton (in the Chair)]

I am afraid that we have no time for other contributions from Back Benchers. May I ask the Scottish National party spokesperson and the Opposition spokesperson to keep their remarks to about five minutes, so that the Minister can have the remaining 10 minutes?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Andrea Leadsom)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) on securing a debate on such an important topic. I can absolutely assure him that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) explained, we are all here to try to make a positive difference, and my heart is absolutely in this debate.

As we all appreciate in this Chamber, the fight against fuel poverty is a significant challenge. Some 2.35 million households in England were fuel poor according to the latest statistics. In Scotland, as so many Members have mentioned, fuel poverty affects nearly 40% of the population. In Wales, 400,000 households are affected. In Northern Ireland, the figure is nearly 300,000. We all use different measures of poverty, but it is a very serious issue, and the Government are determined to make sure that the price people pay for energy is as low as possible, which is why we have been acting to ensure that the impact on bills of paying for clean energy is controlled, limited and, where we can, lowered. We are also committed to making sure the market works effectively for consumers, including through our commitment to implementing as fast as possible the final recommendations of the Competition and Markets Authority, once those are achieved.

As the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey knows, action on fuel poverty is devolved. I am sure he and his hon. Friends will be raising their suggestions for action on fuel poverty with the SNP Government in Scotland, as well as with me. I am absolutely committed to the responsibility that we have in the UK to tackle fuel poverty, but I note that alongside different measures of fuel poverty, different approaches are being taken by our nations to tackling the issue.

So there are GB-wide schemes that are designed to tackle the underlying causes of fuel poverty: inefficient housing through the energy companies obligation, and low household income through the warm home discount. We are working with both the Scottish and Welsh Governments on how these policies can be effectively amended to tackle the root causes of fuel poverty in all nations.

The devolved nature of fuel poverty enables different nations to take the action that is appropriate for them. Each of our nations has policies tailored to address fuel poverty at the local level, such as Nest and Arbed in Wales, the central heating fund in England or the home energy efficiency programmes for Scotland.

[Ian Blackford]

Will the Minister give way?