Fuel Poverty

Debate between Roger Williams and Rushanara Ali

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[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.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this very important debate. According to Barnardo’s, the impact of fuel poverty is being felt by families and older people, but, in addition, 90% of the respondents to its survey said that families were cutting back financially on other services and other things to meet their fuel costs. Therefore, although I support the hon. Gentleman’s debate, I appeal to him to recognise and highlight the fact that families are facing a squeeze. In areas with high levels of child poverty, such as in my constituency, the fuel poverty dimension is a huge issue in the cost of living crisis. I therefore hope that he will join us in campaigning on that and ensure that this debate falls into the context of wider poverty issues.

[Roger Williams]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. I do not underestimate the effect that fuel poverty has on families. It is particularly troublesome that children are drawn into this problem. There will be ways in which we can deal with the immediate issues. The purpose of this debate, as I see it, is to find a much more long-term approach to the problem that will get rid of fuel poverty for ever, rather than mitigating it as it appears.