Fuel Poverty

Janet Daby Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab) [V]]

It is an honour to speak after my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi).

Fuel poverty is like food poverty: it is not complicated. It is poverty, and I do not know anyone who has chosen to be poor. To address it, we need better-paid jobs, affordable housing and reinvestment in the welfare state, and we need people to be treated equally, with fairness and respect. When someone, or a family, has no gas or electricity in their home and cannot afford to pay their bills, that is fuel poverty. When they are unable to have a shower, warm their home and make a hot meal, they are in crisis—they are in fuel poverty.

Fuel poverty is not as visible as food poverty—we cannot see families queuing up for fuel parcels—but for families around the UK rationing their hot water and for pensioners shivering, it is very real. The latest estimate from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy was that there were more than 3 million households in fuel poverty—and that was prior to the pandemic.

I recently spoke to a headteacher of a school in my constituency. Many of the low-income families there will be drained of money because of costly fuel meters, and in spite of their child contracting the virus, they cannot afford to isolate because they must leave their home to top up their gas and electricity meters. Their dilemma is understandable when we consider how punitive the penalties are for entering into arrears on a prepayment meter: as much as 70% of a top-up amount can be deducted if the payee is in debt. These companies make it harder for poorer people and families—they take more from those who do not have much. The Government really must do something about it. They cannot stand back and pretend that it is not happening. Will they make a difference for all communities, to prevent all people and families from experiencing fuel poverty? They must review this measure and do something about it.

As we know, debt can quickly snowball, with vulnerable people turning to payday lenders or worse. Universal credit, with its delays and sanctions, just makes their circumstances more desperate. Yesterday, in the Justice Committee, I became aware that as a result of certain debts due to poverty, such as an unpaid TV licence, a person can end up in prison. It is acutely expensive to keep someone in prison—much more expensive than a TV licence. Ultimately, that means that people are being punished for being poor. How does that make sense?

Let us look at health. Health services in England spend £1.3 billion to treat the impacts of cold homes, such as bronchitis. With poverty comes worry and stress, which can lead to emotional and mental health difficulties. All those things can have an impact on primary and secondary healthcare, and they all come at a cost. With water bills, lower-income households can pay lower rates, but there is no such provision for energy bills. Will the Minister commit today to introducing a measure, such as a social tariff, that will bring consistency to the Government’s policies? As we have already heard, the Government have also made a manifesto commitment to making our energy system more efficient. Do they have any intention of following through on that?

I would like to end by drawing attention to one of the victims of this cruel crisis. Christians Against Poverty told me of the miserable experience of John, who said:

“It’s an awful time when you can’t get electric, you can’t have the lights on. Never mind the TV and the radio. It feels black, it is black and it feels dark. It’s not nice. You think what’s the point of trying to struggle on?”

I hope the Government are listening, as this problem can be solved. We need a new fuel strategy—a new fuel strategy that focuses on green energy and a new fuel strategy that equally focuses on the customer’s welfare.