Fuel Poverty: England

Steve Yemm Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) for securing this important debate. All of us, from all parties, would agree that this topic matters enormously to our constituents.

In my Mansfield constituency, one in six households live in fuel poverty. That is almost 10,000 households, which is higher than the average for the east midlands and considerably higher than the national average. Although energy costs have fallen from the extraordinary highs that we saw in 2022, the price cap remains very high for my constituents. Families with children in my constituency are more than twice as likely to be in fuel stress compared with pensioner households, and lone-parent households are three times as likely to be. The Government must recognise that.

I am pleased that the new Government are currently reviewing the fuel poverty strategy for England to help everyone, whether they are pensioners, families or people living alone, to keep warm. I welcome the Government’s decisive action to help to reduce bills in the longer term, including through their warm homes plan, which will provide funding to enable property owners, including social landlords, to transition their housing stock to become decarbonised and more energy efficient.

I take this opportunity to congratulate Mansfield district council on all its work to retrofit existing properties. I hear from my constituents that that has made a huge difference to their fuel bills. I also congratulate the Labour-controlled Mansfield district council on building more eco-friendly, affordable family council homes in my constituency, such as those on the Bellamy Road development that I visited last week.

In the long term, Great British Energy will invest in clean power projects all across the country. Clean power is the cheapest form of electricity generation and will help our country to become energy independent and not as susceptible to huge swings in international energy prices. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton and Hemsworth that in the medium term we should encourage energy suppliers to re-establish social tariffs. I say to the Minister that it is really important to have that in place for next winter. It would help everyone in my constituency who is experiencing fuel stress to access cheaper energy, and it would have a tangible impact for my constituents.

In the short term, I want to make the case for a substantial expansion of the cold weather payment scheme as an efficient way to address the current reality of energy cost pressures in Mansfield. It would offer a way for the Government to provide pensioners with further payments in the event of a serious chill, while at the same time offering something to families who are not often part of this conversation. Expanding the eligibility for households in receipt of a means-tested benefit, state pension, child benefit or disability benefits would help the poorest families and non-pensioner households to receive support. This would provide vital economic security for families in my constituency.

I know that the Government want to do more—I am sure of that. I look forward to hearing their response to the review in due course and hope that Ministers can implement it ahead of next winter.

[Several hon. Members rose—]