Fuel Poverty

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Roger Williams]

I agree that the warm home discount scheme is very important, as are winter fuel payments and cold weather payments. A combination of those enables old-age pensioners, particularly in poor housing, to have a fairly decent standard of living and a decent quality of life.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He is right to point to the necessity of insulating homes better and of concentrating on that. Will he join me in welcoming the Northern Ireland Executive’s approach? We have the highest levels of fuel poverty of anywhere in the UK—42% of all households are in fuel poverty, which is a shocking statistic—but the Housing Executive has now embarked on a campaign to get all social housing double-glazed, so that there is no single-glazing or substandard windows in any of these houses in Northern Ireland.

[Roger Williams]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for those comments. They are of interest to me; I think the devolved nations in the UK very often show the way to best practice in such matters and that other nations can learn from them. Getting double-glazing into social housing and local authority housing is a way forward.

The three factors that make it more likely that a household will be fuel poor are low income, high energy prices and energy inefficiency of the home, although people would not know that from much of the noisy debate in recent months, and from party promises of fuel price freezes and rolling back charges on bills. By far the most important of those in the UK context is the state of homes. UK incomes are not especially low. EUROSTAT figures for real adjusted gross disposable income of households per capita in 2011 put the UK right in the middle of the table, coming seventh out of the 13 countries for which data are available. We are within €1,000 of Finland and the Netherlands, which have marginally less income, and Sweden and Belgium, which have marginally more.

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[Roger Williams]

I understand that the hon. Gentleman has a real passion for this issue. We share that, as we represent rural areas. I am not quite sure how a scrappage scheme would fit into the green deal, but I am sure that he will enlighten me on that after the debate. I will come on to some of my concerns about the ECO—energy company obligation—scheme later.

On the rural situation—this is a caveat on the comments that I have just made—certain parts of the UK face significantly higher energy prices. Rural areas in particular are far less likely to be on the mains gas grid. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has found that although 10% of the houses in urban areas do not have a gas connection, that figure rises to 36% in rural areas. In villages, the figure rises to more than 50%, and for hamlets and isolated dwellings it is more than 60%. Those figures are for England in 2009, but they illustrate the point well, although I am sure that for some of the devolved nations they could be much higher.

Age UK says that household energy bills in rural areas are, on average, 27% higher than in urban areas. Without mains gas, people in such homes rely on more expensive forms of fuel such as heating oil, liquid petroleum gas, solid fuel or even electric heating. The extension of the gas grid would bring benefits to many such homes. The Government must also ensure that homes that rely on more expensive heating fuels are better insulated if people are to be able to afford energy bills in the future.

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman has raised a significant point about off-grid households, and he is right to say that the problem is far worse in some areas of the country than in others. In Northern Ireland, 70% of households are dependent on home heating oil, which is a massive extra cost burden, and the warm home discount does not apply in the Province. Does he agree that the matter should be looked at as a priority? The problems faced by off-grid households are critical for rural areas and peripheral parts of the UK.

[Roger Williams]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. One of the first things I did when I was elected to the House was to continue the work of my predecessor, who wanted to bring real competition into the supply of liquid petroleum gas. We managed to get the Competition Commission to conduct an inquiry into the procedures that limited people’s ability to change providers, and the commission introduced proposals to allow people to change their supplier without having to change their bulk tank. That has made people much more likely to choose their own supplier.

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[Albert Owen]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I compliment the Government for introducing the fuel duty rebate and for making representations on the issue. I am sure that the Minister and my hon. Friend the shadow Minister will know that I am not shy of criticising my own party, and I was not shy of criticising it when we were in government, because it should have taken that step. Nevertheless, it is wrong now to exclude a whole area—a whole country—because it is within 100 miles of a refinery. No one in my area, the most north-western point of Wales, can plug into a refinery. The independent suppliers are paying extra for fuel because of the cost of transport from those very refineries. The 100 mile radius principle is really a fly in the ointment. People in Wales, unlike those in remote areas of Scotland and in some parts of England, have been seriously disadvantaged. They are paying extra.

[Mr Dodds]

I want to pick up on a point made in the previous intervention. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt join me in expressing concern and anger that the rural fuel rebate scheme does not apply to any part of Northern Ireland either, even though we have the highest diesel and petrol prices anywhere in the UK and, indeed, sometimes in Europe. This is a major issue for us as well, and it must be revised and looked at.

[Albert Owen]

Absolutely. The criteria should take rural areas into account, as well as peripheral areas of the UK, because they are the ones that are disadvantaged. Someone in a rural area of central Yorkshire, for example, could probably travel in all directions to get a better deal on their fuel. However, for someone in a peripheral area, such as the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams), there is only one way to get their fuel.