Fuel Poverty (Rural Britain)

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Betts. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and congratulate her on securing the debate, which is incredibly important for a range of reasons, many of which were set out by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen).

One important reason to discuss the issue is the incorrect assumption made, I dare say, throughout Whitehall and other places that rural areas are affluent. That is a staggeringly inaccurate assumption, but it is understandable, based on the headline figures. My constituency has the second lowest unemployment in England—I probably should not say that out loud; we will be off the list for every grant going—and average house prices are £250,000. So far, so good, but the largest number of jobs available in my patch, which I suspect also applies for many hon. Members present, is at the minimum wage.

The average wage is about £18,000 a year, which means that the gap between house prices and average incomes is the largest outside the south-east of England. We have only 3,500 council homes left, following the foolish and damaging sell-off of the 1980s, with a waiting list of 5,000. All that means that although benefit uptake is low in the south lakes, the incidence of poverty, housing need and, especially, fuel poverty is extremely high—above 20%. In addition, the average age is 10 years above the national average. Many people who live in the communities that I represent are retired and do not, therefore, appear in unemployment figures, but they live in real poverty.

It is vital that the Government should understand that fuel poverty is more likely in rural communities because of the age of the housing stock, which has been explained by both hon. Members who have already spoken. I shall not go into further detail, except to say that homes are harder to insulate the older they are, and if they have no cavity wall to fill.

In addition, as we have heard, many homes in rural, sparsely populated areas are off the mains for gas, and sometimes even for electricity, and are much harder and more expensive to heat. However, although villages such as Hawkshead, Coniston, Grasmere, the Langdales, Dent and other areas in my constituency are rural and have an elderly housing stock, it is important to remember that many of the larger towns—larger, that is, by our standards—such as Kendal, which is a huge metropolis of 14,000 to 15,000 houses, have benefited hugely from Warm Front. It is important not to knock it too much. It did the easy things quickly and tackled fuel poverty among some of the poorest families. The areas they were living in might have been built-up, but they were not necessarily in urban areas.

Those homes were built in a way that enabled Warm Front to get at them quickly to insulate cavity walls and so on. It is important to celebrate easy, quick wins. The Government need to get plenty of those, too, in their first few months in power. I want the Government to build on Warm Front, not sweep it away thinking it has done damage—it has not.

There are great opportunities in rural communities—to build on something that the hon. Member for Ynys Môn said—for the provision of renewable energy resources, which can be enormously beneficial to the wider country in tackling climate change and creating energy security, which has also been mentioned. However, there is also an economic benefit to the struggling communities that are served.

I want to get in a word for my county. Cumbria has the fastest-falling water in England but only six plugged-in hydro schemes. That is scandalous, and I would like the Government to redress the situation quickly. Last week, I met a team from Kentmere, the charitable trust running the Kentmere Hydro project. The 350 kW scheme has the full backing of planners in the national park, which is staggering. It also has the backing of the community, which is less staggering. The one thing that could hold the project up, of course, is finance.

The trust is not looking for handouts, particularly at this time, but I ask the Minister to make it clear that the green investment bank announced by the Chancellor will be able to provide loan finance for such charitable trusts, and that those trusts will be able to qualify in their bid for feed-in tariffs. That community project could be replicated across rural Britain, as long as there are clear signs of active, practical encouragement from the Government. The same applies to anaerobic digestion. I hope that the Government will back anaerobic digester start-ups in rural communities as a way to generate income and green energy from waste.

I spoke last week to an older couple living in the Lake district, whose income is just under £10,000. They spend £2,000 a year on council tax and just over £2,000 a year on fuel. They are very typical. Their plight is worsened by the price of petrol. I urge the Minister to consider the impact of fuel duty on rural communities where little or no public transport is available and there is no choice for many people, however poor they may be, but to use the car.

I am sure that other hon. Members know, as I do, many people who must make the appalling choice between petrol in the car or food on the table. I welcome the Government’s investigation of rural exemptions on fuel duty, and of course I call for Cumbria, the Lake district and the dales to be included in any such pilot.

They key factor behind all fuel poverty, as we all know, is the cost of fuel. That is why it is vital that there should be further social tariffs covering all fuel systems—not just mains fuel systems—and moves to ensure that the cheapest unit costs are the ones that people pay for first. As things stand, an elderly couple in fuel poverty heating their cottage in Grasmere could easily pay more per unit for the energy they use than a City banker heating his luxurious second home next door. If I had a fiver for every time a politician said we are living in difficult times, I could probably pay off the national debt, but however fair the Government try to be in reducing the deficit, these difficult times are bound to be most difficult for those in the most marginal financial situations. That is why the Government must demonstrate that they will go out of their way to eliminate fuel poverty, especially in rural Britain, and that they will take practical steps. Otherwise, a bad situation could get worse.