Parliamentary Committee challenges weakening of government fuel poverty targets
The government has “shifted the goal posts” by rolling back on a commitment to eradicate fuel poverty and fiddling official statistics, according to a new report. Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee says government programmes to help low-income households insulate their homes are a vital part of the solution, and should not be cut.
No-one should have to live in a cold home – and thirteen years ago, the government set itself a target to ensure that no-one would have to. Under the 2000 Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act, it promised “as far as reasonably practicable” to eliminate fuel poverty entirely by 2016.
Setting targets isn’t always a guarantee of success, however. In the event, the UK’s level of fuel poverty trebled between 2004 and 2009 – and earlier this year, the government quietly got rid of the target. As David Cameron and Nick Clegg announce plans to weaken one programme for tackling fuel poverty, a Parliamentary committee argues that far from scaling back policies, it must redouble efforts to tackling the issue.
Fuel poverty target deleted
In the past, a household was considered to be fuel poor if it spent more than 10 per cent of its income on fuel costs. It rapidly became clear that under this measure, the government wasn’t going to meet its 2016 target, however:
Image - Screen Shot 2013-11-28 At 16.25.46 (note)
Source: Government statistics, July 2013.
Thirteen years since the government made the pledge, fuel poverty continues to be a serious problem. Last winter, there were 31,000 excess deaths as a result of the cold winter, according to official statistics. The World Health Organisation suggests about 30 per cent of these were the result of fuel poverty.
The government recognised that it wasn’t going to meet the target. This July, it introduced an amendment to the parliamentary Energy Bill in the House of Lords. It removes the target of eliminating fuel poverty by 2016; but requires the government to “address” fuel poverty by an (unstated) later date. The government has to decide on the date by the end of the year.
Definition changed
The government has found one way of reducing fuel poverty. This year it changed the definition of the term – reducing the number of households classified as fuel poor in England from 3.2 to 2.4 million in one fell swoop, according to the report.
A household is now defined as being in fuel poverty if it spends more than the UK median on its energy bill and that expenditure pushes it below the poverty line. The new measure followed a long period of consultation, and it has advantages. For example it excludes richer households that are spending a large proportion of their income on energy.
The committee isn’t impressed, however – not necessarily because it believes the new definition is any worse, but because it lets the government off the hook too easily. It says:
“… the Government’s proposed change of definition of ‘fuel poverty’, and the weakening of the legislative commitment to ‘eliminate’ it, will place a greater imperative on the Government to demonstrate that it is committed to making fuel poverty a thing of the past. Unless the Government is prepared to make that commitment and show how it will be delivered, the changes should be stopped.”
A commitment to energy efficiency?
So if the government hasn’t got a target for eliminating fuel poverty any more, what has it got? At the time it abandoned the target, fuel poverty groups were largely positive – the National Energy Association even “congratulated” energy minister Ed Davey on the changes. That’s because the minister also promised to introduce a new target to improve the energy efficiency of the fuel poor homes.
So, while the government abandoned the target, there appears to be a silver lining. The UK’s housing stock is amongst the least energy efficient in Europe. Experts believe the easiest – and cheapest – way to help people heat their homes in the long-term is to change that.
The government’s actual policies may be going in the opposite direction, however. Over the weekend, it confirmed plans to weaken the Energy Company Obligation ( ECO). ECO requires energy suppliers to seek out and subsidise home insulation for low-income households. The government has agreed to give suppliers four years rather than two to achieve their targets under the scheme.
It’s not yet clear what this will mean in practice. In an article for the Sun on Sunday, Nick Clegg and David Cameron said that ECO’s targets will not be changed “for the worst off homes“. The government is also introducing other incentives to help people insulate their homes, including a £1,000 grant for new homeowners and help for landlords to make rented properties more energy efficient.
But campaign group the Association for the Conservation of Energy said that the cut to ECO “beggars belief” and will cost 10,000 jobs in the insulation industry. Analysis from the fuel poverty group Energy Bill Revolution suggests that cutting ECO’s targets in half across the board would mean the government spending about 30 per cent less on tackling fuel poverty in 2014/15 than it did in 2009/10.
Fuel poverty going up
The level of fuel poverty in this country is expected to go up slightly in 2013, according to government statistics. There seems to be general agreement that the only long-term solution to this is to implement targeted, funded government programmes aimed at increasing the energy efficiency of the UK’s leaky homes.
Even the government agrees. But having removed its fuel poverty target, it doesn’t appear to have created an alternative yet. And bizarrely, concern about energy has resulted in the government’s main programme targeted at insulating the homes of the fuel poor being watered down. The committee may be right to be concerned.