Fuel Poverty: England

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered fuel poverty in England.

I am looking forward to speaking in this debate under your chairpersonship, Mr Efford. I am sure you will be fair but firm—fair with us and firm with the other side. We meet today to debate what I regard as a very serious issue. It is good to see so many people present, all well-brushed, shaved, toothbrushed and all the other things one does in the morning. I hope we all had a good breakfast. It is great to see everyone here.

This is a serious debate about a serious underlying problem, which affects millions of people, as we will hear. We meet today with the temperature forecast, at least in my patch in Yorkshire—God’s own country, as we call it—to reach minus 1° at the weekend, which will cause great problems for those people who are living in fuel poverty.

I want to share one thing with the House from my personal experience. I grew up in a property that was later condemned as a slum and demolished. I remember my brother and I living in that unheated house—there was no heating at all apart from one coal fire. In winter, it was perishing, and it has left me with an enduring feeling that people living in the conditions that I saw should be better supported by a society that claims to be the sixth wealthiest in the world. With that background, I want to speak briefly about fuel poverty in England.

Let me say another preparatory thing. The incoming Government—although they have now been in place for some time—faced the most difficult inheritance for dealing with fuel poverty, given all the other fiscal problems that we have heard much about. Last week’s announcement that they will address some fuel poverty issues was welcome, but I have one question about their proposals for private landlords.

Many tenants of private landlords live in fuel poverty, because the properties that are being rented are not properly thermally insulated. The Government have now said that private landlords must bring their properties up to standard, but the fear in some people’s minds is that the landlords will simply use that as an excuse to bump up rents further, because they have had to pay to make properties more efficient. But they chose to rent out properties knowing that they were not properly efficient. I understand when tenants say to me and others that that is not right.

When the Government made their decision on the winter fuel allowance, I received about 1,000 emails, and in many cases they were heartbreaking. It is not often the case that the voices of ordinary folk get heard in this place, so I want to refer briefly to three or four of those comments. I received an email from someone who has something called post-polio syndrome—they had polio as a child. A person with that syndrome finds it difficult to keep warm. I spoke to them and we said, “Look, it’s possible to go into one of the local community or church halls”—which every single village in my constituency now has—“in order to keep warm,” but the response was, “That’s fine, but I’ve got to keep the house warm in any event, because when I go back into a cold home, I have this problem with the syndrome.”

I had another communication from someone with asthma. He has managed to keep it under control for most of the years, but he caught the bug. It took him more than a month to shake it off, and he was struggling with his asthma. He could not get warm at all, in spite of wrapping himself in blankets. He tells me that the house he lives in has a roof that is more than 70 years old. He keeps on getting it patched up with the help of his family, because he has no money; he cannot afford a new one, and he cannot get help from anybody. The insurance company says that it is wear and tear, so it will not help to pay for the roof. All the heating he puts on is escaping straight into the atmosphere.

I also had a letter from a lady in Normanton. Her total income is £221 a week—she is a pensioner—and she pays £171 a week just for her mortgage and council tax, so she is left with only £50 a week to pay for heating, food and all the other necessities of life. How is that woman meant to survive in those circumstances?

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Jon Trickett]

I will briefly.

[Kim Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important and timely debate. Does he agree that it is shocking that nearly 80% of Liverpool Riverside residents have to spend nearly 10% of their disposable income on keeping their homes warm, and that more targeted support is needed to enable local authorities to support those most in need in our constituencies?

[Jon Trickett]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments, and of course, what she is saying is correct. The lady who I was just talking about told me that living on £50 a week is practically impossible. I imagine that there are some people in this Chamber, modest as we all are, who spend more than £50 on a meal. Think about that woman in Normanton left with only that amount of money to live on. Her final comment was poignant. She speaks for the 1,000 people who wrote to me when she says:

“For many, retirement now means misery and trying to make ends meet. In the near future no doubt, I will have a choice like many before me—heat or eat. And I’ll just be another statistic. That is something no one would look forward to,”

having worked all their life. She speaks for millions of people.

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jon Trickett]

I will, but briefly. There are a lot of people who want to speak.

[Sarah Dyke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for sharing those heartbreaking stories. A constituent of mine from Ilton wrote to me recently. She suffers with rheumatoid arthritis and needs a warm environment to keep warm, but because she is on personal independence payment, she is not eligible to claim the winter fuel allowance. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government must urgently reassess their exemptions for the winter fuel allowance, to ensure that those who are in medical need receive the financial support that they require?

[Jon Trickett]

The hon. Lady has made her point. The House probably knows my views on the winter fuel allowance, but I had better move on before I get myself into trouble.

One in four households in Fitzwilliam and Kinsley in my constituency, where miners once provided the heat for our country, are now living in fuel poverty as a result of changes over the past few years. There are two definitions of fuel poverty. The first is the Government’s rule, which was changed under the Tory Government in 2015. Under that definition, an estimated 3 million households in England alone are in fuel poverty, but it requires both that the household is in poverty and that the house is inadequately insulated.

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jon Trickett]

I am not going to take any more interventions, because so many people want to speak.

So many people with houses that are thermally insulated, but who still remain in poverty, are excluded from that 3 million figure. A more accurate figure is one that only looks at whether a household is living in fuel poverty, and under that definition 8.9 million households in England alone are living in fuel poverty. If we say that there are two people in each household, we are talking about 17 million or 18 million people waking up in the morning in an unheated house, like I did living in the attic with my brother, with ice on the inside of the windows. That is unbearable to think about in one of the richest countries in the world.

Ill health is a direct consequence of inadequately heated houses. Whichever figure is used, between 10% and 20% of all excess winter deaths in England are caused by unheated or cold houses. That is a disgrace. One in four children living in a cold home suffer mental health problems, which does not surprise me when they are living in such conditions.

Let me turn quickly to the causes, which we could debate for a long time. It seems to me that there are two separate issues. One is the prices that energy companies charge, which are, frankly, driven by profits and greed, and the other is poor insultation. I will leave it to others to speak about the impact of uninsulated houses on the climate because I do not have time to say everything. On prices, it is a scandal that between 2022 and 2023 the price of energy increased by 27%, leaving almost a quarter of a million more households in fuel poverty.

The other day, when the Bank of England decided to cut interest rates by 0.25 percentage points, it commented that it expects inflation to increase because of rising energy prices. That is a disastrous position for so many people in our country, which will drive more into fuel poverty. I will quote Warm This Winter, the campaign group that represents 60 different charities. Its authoritative view on energy suppliers is that there is

“clearly an obscene level of profits being made”.

The whole energy industry needs to be looked at, from extraction through to providers. The End Fuel Poverty Coalition said:

“While consumers have suffered in cold damp homes this winter, energy firms’ boardrooms have been celebrating further bumper profits.”

I do not see how that is acceptable in a society that claims to be one of the richest in the world, but there we are.

Let me turn to the building stock itself. I am a builder by trade; I was a heating engineer and plumber and worked in the building industry. It is shocking, when there are still people with building skills out of work, that the building stock of our country is so poorly thermally insulated. Just over 40% of all residences—houses and flats—in Britain do not meet the Government’s minimum standards. The implications for the planet are clear, and others might want to talk about that.

The Government inherited a number of programmes trying to tackle fuel poverty. The previous Government had moved to providing smart meters. They are useful for consumers to see and control the amount of energy they are consuming, but they do not help to keep the house warm. That initiative by the Conservative Government distracted people from the real problem of low incomes and high energy costs, driven by profit-seeking.

There were three programmes in place. The energy company obligation required energy companies to begin to tackle the problem. That started well in 2020 with 113,000 houses, but by last year that number had gone down to 38,000. It collapsed when the energy companies, which were taking all that money from tenants and residents, failed to deliver. The second programme, the warm home discount, applies to only 11% of the population in England. Only 15% of all the houses that need attention have been fully insulated.

That is where we are today. I think it is a scandal. It is wrong morally, economically, financially—in any way we can imagine—that people who have worked all their lives and are now pensioners, who had a reasonable prospect of living a satisfactory life, are living in homes that are poorly heated. Children are living in poorly heated homes in which at least one adult is working on low pay—another problem is that bosses are increasingly paying low pay. Those houses ought not to be left in that condition. I hope the Minister will give us some confidence that we are going somewhere. It takes time for the Government to change direction, but we need to move fast.

Finally, let me pose three questions to the Minister, who I am pleased to see in her place. First, where are the Government going on fuel poverty—is it a high priority for them? Secondly, what is she going to do about the energy company obligation, which is failing? Finally, we often discuss the idea that the energy companies should have a social tariff for the lowest paid and those in the most difficulty. The country has decided that there should be a social tariff just for the internet—people living in difficult situations pay less for the internet—so it is extraordinary that we do not have one for energy production. I believe that there is a consultation on a social tariff ongoing, so will the Minister tell the House exactly where we are going on that?

There is much more to say, but quite a number of Members want to speak, so I will draw my comments to a conclusion.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Jon Trickett]

I thank everybody for contributing. The House will have heard the Minister’s passion and commitment. I was particularly interested in what she said about warm homes—that she had heard heartbreaking stories and was determined to drive down fuel poverty. Although there was much that was good in her remarks, there were elements missing. In truth, our society is deeply dysfunctional; it needs structural change and a rupture with the existing arrangements. The fact that billions of pounds of profits are made in the energy sector while millions of people are left in poverty leads me to one conclusion: those who drive people into poverty by driving up the prices must pay for the fact that so many people are in poverty, while we get on with retrofitting houses.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).