Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, pursuant to the Oral Answer of 6 November 2014, Official Report, column 959, on energy bills, what the evidential basis was for the statement that fuel poverty increased massively between 1997 and 2010.

The Official Report of 6 November 2014, (Official Report, Column 959) records my rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State as saying that “fuel poverty increased massively under the previous Government.”

As shown by National Statistics, fuel poverty, measured using the 10% indicator in use under the previous Government, affected 3.5 million households in England in 2010. This was lower than the peak of 4 million households affected in 2009, but still more than twice as many households as had been affected in 2005