The Government’s
four next steps to help low income homes deal with high energy
bills are set out today, as the latest fuel poverty statistics are
published.
The Government’s four next steps to help low income homes deal
with high energy bills are set out today, as the latest fuel
poverty statistics are published.
Four next steps:
1. Action to help the poorest insulate their homes. We are
increasing obligations on energy companies to help the most
vulnerable and plan to set a “Super” Priority Group obligation for
the most vulnerable – such as poorer, older pensioners - as part
of the extension to 2012 of the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT).
2. Provision of street by street help in low income
neighbourhoods. Up to 90,000 homes in England, Scotland and Wales
will receive help to get whole house energy makeovers to save
hard-pressed families around £300 per year on energy bills. The
first ten areas are today announced by British Gas as part of the
Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP). Energy companies, in
partnership with local authorities, will deliver around £350m of
energy efficiency measures under CESP over the next three years.
3. Action on prices for the most vulnerable. The social tariffs
offered by the energy companies are vital for those who face real
hardship. We plan to put voluntary social tariffs on a statutory footing.
4. Tougher regulation to make sure all consumers get a fair deal.
Improvements have already been made over the last year and we now
plan to give Ofgem new powers to police abuses in the market. We
will continue to push energy companies to pass on wholesale price
reductions as far and as quickly as possible
The seventh annual Fuel Poverty Report is published today and
spells out in full the Government’s strong package of measures to
fight fuel poverty.
The latest official statistics, also published today, show 2.8
million homes in 2007 were classed as fuel poor in England. This
is 300,000 less than we projected because incomes rose more than
we envisaged during the period.
Energy and Climate Change Minister David Kidney said:
“We recognise there is still a mountain to climb on fuel poverty
because of significant increases in fuel bills and that’s why
we’re determined to redouble our efforts.
“We will build on the measures we’ve already brought forward,
including the £20billion on benefits and programmes, without which
800,000 more people would have found themselves in fuel poverty.
“We plan to legislate to give new powers to the regulator to take
action, make social tariffs mandatory not optional, and are
planning new measures on energy efficiency targeted at the poorest.”
The Government’s package to tackle fuel poverty includes:
Improving energy efficiency in homes
- Figures officially released today show 1.9 million homes have
already been insulated under the Prime Minister’s £1bn Home Energy
Saving Programme announced last year. We are on track to insulate
6 million homes by 2011.
- 20% increase in CERT leading to a revised target of 185 million
lifetime tonnes of carbon – the average annual savings of the
programme are equivalent to the annual emissions of about 1
million homes.
- From January, direct mail low energy light bulbs will no longer
count towards energy suppliers’ CERT obligation so other products,
including more insulation will need to be promoted.
- We have improved the Warm Front Scheme which has helped more
than 2 million vulnerable households since it began in June 2000 -
500,000 of those were in the last two years alone.
- More than 1 million social homes are warm, wind and
weather-tight since the Decent Homes Standard was introduced in
1997, spending more than £29bn.
Improving income levels
- Winter fuel and cold weather payments are more generous for the
second year running.
Tackling energy prices
- Britain’s Big Six energy suppliers spent £157 million on
voluntary social programmes in 2008-09, a near three-fold increase
compared with the year before
- Ofgem has changed the licences to prevent unfair price
discrimination, going further than before to protect all consumers.
Notes to Editors
1. British Gas will carry out work through CESP on streets in
Dundee, Glasgow, Swansea, Preston in Lancashire, Knowsley in
Merseyside, Birmingham, Walsall, Blacon in Cheshire and the London
Boroughs of Southwark and Haringey.
2. CESP will promote a “whole house‟ approach, and will be
delivered through the development of community-based partnerships
involving Local Authorities (LAs) along with energy suppliers and
electricity generators, via a house-by-house, street-by-street
approach. Partnership working will allow CESP to be implemented in
a way that is best suited to individual areas and coordinated with
existing initiatives. We estimate up to 100 schemes will be funded
benefiting around 90,000 homes across Great Britain, and
delivering a saving of nearly 2.9m tonnes of CO2 emissions.
3. We insulated 5 million homes under the Energy Efficiency
Commitment between April 2002 and March 2008; there have been just
over a million additional households insulated under the first
year of CERT from April 2008. Around 3 million of these 6 million
households were vulnerable ‘Priority Group’ households. In
combination with other energy efficiency policies, 1.9 million
homes have now been insulated under the Prime Minister’s £1bn Home
Energy Saving Programme announced last year (April 2008 – December 2011).
4. The announcement of the Government’s intention to place social
tariffs on a statutory footing was central to the initial findings
of the fuel poverty review, which were integrated in the UK Low
Carbon Transition Plan published on 15th July 2009. The Terms of
Reference for the next phase of the review are at: www.decc.gov.uk <http://www.decc.gov.uk/>
5. The Government’s seventh annual fuel poverty report and the
latest fuel poverty statistics can be viewed at: www.decc.gov.uk <http://www.decc.gov.uk/>
Contacts:
Department of Energy and Climate Change
nds.decc@coi.gsi.gov.uk
Philippa Heap
Phone: 0300 068 5218
philippa.heap@decc.gsi.gov.uk