Fuel Poverty and Energy Efficiency

Joan Walley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

I am coming to the Warm Front scheme, because the right hon. Member for Don Valley made much of the fact that we are closing it down. Under the previous Government, the Warm Front scheme was the vehicle by which some vulnerable households were helped, but we consider the scale of the fuel poverty challenge to be much greater, and, as she has admitted, there were problems with the scheme. We are far more ambitious, because fuel poverty must be tackled and Britain has some of the oldest and, therefore, draughtiest, housing stock in Europe. If we are serious about climate change and tackling high energy bills, we should not help just those who are at risk of fuel poverty, although they should of course be a priority. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to green-proof their house and achieve lower energy bills in the process.

Warm Front will be closing, as announced more than two years ago, but applications will continue to be accepted up to 19 January, and the work will be followed through, for all who apply up to 19 January. I have set out to the House today in a written statement how that transition will work. Even before 19 January, we brought in Warm Front’s successor—the affordable warmth scheme, which the right hon. Lady did not mention, and which is part of our new energy company obligation. Affordable warmth is up and operating, and low-income households who previously could get Warm Front can now get affordable warmth. It and the energy company obligation, which are both now in operation, will support our most ambitious policy of all—the green deal.

This is a transformative moment. We shall see the full launch of the green deal this month. From 28 January, all households will be eligible for it. They will be able to make energy-saving improvements that will be paid for, over time, through their energy bills and the savings that they make. This is an affordable way of retrofitting millions of homes, making them cheaper to heat and lowering carbon emissions at the same time.

The right hon. Member for Don Valley rightly wanted to talk about Warm Front and the details of its budget. I shall deal with that now, although she herself admitted that there will problems with Warm Front. As she said, we have spent £38.4 million of the £100 million budget, and £15.5 is committed. We expect to spend about £70 million by the end of the year. We will not return the remaining £30 million to the Treasury, as the right hon. Lady implied, because we want to do all that we can to address fuel poverty, and we have worked hard to ensure that the money is spent on tackling it, organising a local authority competition for cash from a special fuel poverty fund. I told the House yesterday that about £30 million was being provided for local authorities across the country to spend on local energy efficiency projects for low-income and vulnerable households. There will be no waste. As it comes to the end of its life, Warm Front is being recycled, and what is replacing it is infinitely better.

Opposition Members seem to think that Warm Front was a fantastic scheme, but people had to apply for it, whereas under affordable warmth the energy companies will have to go out and find people in order to help them. I should have expected Opposition Members to support that.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

The Government announced yesterday that extra money would be available under the affordable warmth scheme. In Stoke-on-Trent, it will amount to £290,000, which could help 200 homes. However, when a quarter of the population are in fuel poverty, that is a drop in the ocean.

[Mr Davey]

Opposition Front Benchers criticised me for not spending the money. I have just told the House that we are spending the money, and now I am being criticised again. I am afraid that sometimes one cannot win.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

As I follow the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), and having heard the exchanges just now, I know that I am on the side of the Secretary of State. It is vital that whatever the Government do on energy policy puts into effect the Climate Change Act 2008. If hon. Members, in the five minutes they have in which to make a speech, go on and on about the issues of climate change and scepticism—as we have just heard from the hon. Gentleman—we will not deal with the large number of people who, as we sit here, are unable to deal with the cold in their own homes.

Five minutes is not a proper amount of time in which to rush through a speech, but if there is any way that the Secretary of State could use the revenue from the European emissions trading scheme and the carbon floor price to provide the additional resources needed to eradicate fuel poverty once and for all, that would be just one contribution to this wide-ranging and complex debate that could make a difference to people in my constituency and across the UK.

As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke), as many as 9 million people will experience fuel poverty by 2016. We must deal with that and doing so would I believe give heart to the 25% of households in Stoke-on-Trent who are in fuel poverty. Last week, the cold weather payment was triggered. That means that those people are having to decide whether to heat their homes or to feed their families. Our constituents are having to make those choices, so our debate today is timely. Although I welcome the money announced yesterday that will improve however many households, it will not produce effects on the scale needed to deal with the hardship that people face.

We have heard about the Warm Front scheme, and although it had its problems, the fact that it will end this Saturday—although we were given prior notice—raises the question of what will happen to that funding. I do not think that it should just go back to the Treasury or that the Department of Energy and Climate Change should just say that there will be extra money for different programmes. We need additional money and I urge the Government to consider that in the context of the current crisis.

Many Members want to speak, so I shall be brief. The green deal is fine for those who will be able to take out loans at 7% interest rates, but that will not be an option for the majority of people in my constituency. If we can increase expenditure on energy efficiency, that will create jobs, putting money back into local economies to make a difference.

The energy company obligation—the ECO scheme—will probably be of some help in Stoke-on-Trent. As we worked so hard to set up the warm zone scheme, into which I had a big input over the years, we are now well placed to know where the households are that can be targeted.

My final point is about district heating networks, which we must consider from the point of view of innovation. We need to look at what the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is doing and how the Treasury is making money available. We also need to look at best practice in other European countries. If the Government are going to have a heat strategy that tries to increase the use of waste industrial heat in urban centres, that is exactly what Stoke-on-Trent would benefit from. The Government have set up a competition on carbon capture and storage. Why could they not think about giving technical support to ways of introducing district heating systems and providing some of the capital, preferably using money from the UK Green Investment Bank?

We need to step up the way in which we are dealing with fuel poverty and the whole energy agenda by viewing it as a crisis. It is not only about the need to decarbonise the economy; the crisis is also there in the homes and lives of our constituents. In this debate—I welcome the fact that it is an Opposition debate—we must find a way of moving the whole agenda forward.