Fuel Poverty: England

Kim Johnson 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.