Speech by Phil Woolas MP to the National Energy Action Conference, University of Chester - 18 September 2007
Thank you very much indeed for your kind reception here today. I want to thank you for your work in helping those people who struggle to heat their homes.
I did very much want to come to this conference today because fuel poverty is an issue important to me, my constituents and thousands of people. Any elected person knows how important it is to provide solutions to the blight of fuel poverty.
I know that the NEA deliver a wide variety of valuable projects ranging from the provision of fuel debt advice through to developing energy efficiency solutions for park homes and piloting microgeneration technologies in vulnerable households. This wide range of projects is very valuable indeed.
Through initiatives like the annual Warm Homes Week, NEA plays a crucial role in raising awareness of fuel poverty issues. These events – like your conference here today – bring together expertise, lessons and best practice, which given the range of organisations involved, I imagine must be very difficult.
But first I want to set the context. If we go back 10 years to 1996, approximately five million households in England were in fuel poverty.
By 2004 - thanks mainly to your efforts - this had fallen dramatically to just over one million households.
But that is only half the story.
Although household energy prices over the last 6 months have thankfully fallen, we cannot forget that - by historical standards – they still remain very high.
The impact of high energy prices on our policies has been severe.
Current estimates suggest the numbers in fuel poverty have risen by over one million households since 2004, although that’s still a huge decrease on 1996 figures.
It’s clear to see that the first policy goal should be to reduce fuel prices. Ministers see a paradox in getting fuel prices down and reducing emissions. Our challenge is to break down that paradox by at the same time decreasing CO2 emissions and bringing prices down.
I believe that the policies set out in the Energy White Paper are balanced ones. They will reduce the use of fossil fuels and decrease our reliance on imported energy, thereby bringing prices down.
We also need to focus on energy use in our homes. In my view one of the best things government has done is its commitment to the Decent Homes scheme. This is an example of bringing together policy objectives, tackling climate change – as 30% of CO2 emissions come from housing – and addressing fuel poverty.
Defra has also joined forces with the Department for Work and Pensions to put in place cross referral systems which allow pensioners, eligible for benefits, to gain greater access to our Warm Front Scheme and other services.
This winter we will also be launching a cross-Government communications campaign, outlining all the help that is currently available; be it assistance on improving energy efficiency, advice on benefit eligibility, the cheapest tariffs or just advice on how to stay healthy this winter.
I am also pleased to be able to tell you that today we are launching guidance, that I know many of you have asked for, to Local Authorities on addressing climate change and fuel poverty. This draws together existing material in both these areas and will give Local Authorities an overview of opportunities for further action.
Improved targeting and take-up of benefits has long been a key means of tackling poverty in all its guises, not just in fuel poverty.
Changes in benefit provision has seen the average annual income for families with children rise by £1,800 since 1997.
It is a similar picture for pensioners. The average pensioner household is £1,500 better off than in 1997 with the introduction of pension credit, winter fuel payments and other tax and benefit changes.
As well as improved targeting of benefits, we need to help people claim all of the benefits which they are entitled to. In my mind we must put this at the top of the agenda.
As part of this, the Government’s Warm Front scheme has recently begun to offer a free benefits check to every household that applies. This service has helped successful applicants receive on average almost £1,400 more in benefits – significantly higher than the average yearly household energy bill.
This is of course just one part of the many services Warm Front provides to vulnerable households across England.
In the last financial year more than 250,000 households received assistance from Warm Front. This means they will install around 12 heating systems during the course of this speech which equates to almost one per minute! This is an incredible achievement which is very important in many of our communities.
This really does highlight the practical impact Warm Front has in people’s real lives. And the contribution its energy-efficient heating systems are making to the health, comfort and financial security of its customers.
Warm Front also plays an important role in reducing household carbon dioxide emissions and helping the UK to meet its targets for tackling climate change. By 2010 Warm Front and its equivalent schemes in the Devolved Administrations will have saved about 500,000 tonnes of carbon. And it is one of the Government’s most cost effective programmes for reducing emissions, reflecting its environmental, social and economic benefits.
And there are other programmes that help drive energy efficiency improvements. The Energy Efficiency Commitment requires energy suppliers to meet targets to provide energy efficiency. In order to ensure that those on low incomes benefit from EEC measures, suppliers are required to achieve at least 50% of energy savings in a priority group of those in receipt of benefits. This is an extra contribution to help remove more households from fuel poverty.
We remain committed to helping low-income households through the three-year Carbon Emissions Reduction Target - or CERT - which will succeed the Energy Efficiency Commitment from April 2008. We have recently proposed a CERT obligation at around double the level of activity of the current Energy Efficiency Commitment, with suppliers required to focus at least 40% of carbon savings on the low-income priority group.
We also proposed a new approach to allow suppliers more flexibility in meeting their priority group requirement while at the same time potentially increasing the number of households removed from fuel poverty. We are currently considering the responses to the CERT consultation.
So to sum up, the Government has put in place a whole range of policies to improve the energy efficiency of people’s homes. We have also introduced measures to improve people’s incomes, through the benefits system and winter fuel payments. And we have done much to improve the co-ordination and targeting of these measures, both across Government and in communities..
But as I stressed at the beginning of my remarks, the increase in fuel prices has reversed some of our earlier progress.
As the White Paper points out, the energy suppliers have an important role to play in helping vulnerable customers cope with high prices.
We will be working with Ofgem to ensure that it is easy for customers to realise the savings that can be achieved through switching supplier, tariff or payment method.
We will also encourage more companies to take action to help to address the difficulties faced by vulnerable customers, as you would expect us to do.
We will be evaluating how effective they have been in meeting this challenge, and have already stated we will consider using legislative measures. My objective is clear, to ensure that all companies have proper measures to support those customers caught in the fuel poverty trap.
I am not committed to a legislative route. I know that many of the suppliers – and some of them are here today – taking positive steps to support their vulnerable customers and I think that is a preferable approach.
The last point I want to make, is to remind all of us why we’re here today. It is unacceptable, in modern day Britain, that there are poor and elderly people who are dying because they cannot afford to heat their homes. How much the debate is about the perception of fuel poverty or actual fuel poverty is an academic one.
The Government is committed to tackling this and the increase in fuel prices makes that more urgent. It annoys me that you only read about energy prices in the financial pages of newspapers when in fact it is a wider social issue. Tackling fuel poverty will require us to address the problem house by house, whether in a city centre estate, or a village in the countryside.
NEA recognised the importance of this issue in their work developing the hugely important Warm Zones. By drawing together all the various sources of funding, and concentrating assistance in a locality, Warm Zones provide a focused, street by street approach. This ensures that households living in a Warm Zone area can benefit from the maximum assistance available in making their home warm and energy efficient.
Inspired by this, the Chancellor announced in December last year a programme to support improved interaction between programmes in local areas to bring the maximum benefit to individual households.
Today I am pleased to tell you that 48 projects have been approved to go ahead with help from over six million pounds from theCommunity Energy Efficiency Fund in England.
Some of these projects have been led by local authorities - some by energy industry organisations.
Some projects are new and some have already been in existence but need to expand or accelerate. And we are of course happy to help.
I would like to congratulate all those successful applicants and wish them every luck with their proposed project.
These projects are vital in tackling fuel poverty and will reach in excess of 300,000 households. They will reach out tolocal communities and make a difference on the ground where it is most needed.
I would like to finish by again reiterating both the Government’s and my own commitment to achieving our fuel poverty targets. The UK was the first Government in the world to implement a strategy. We recognised at the time that this was a huge challenge, which has only grown in the years since.
Of course there is no magic wand and no easy answers. What is required is a targeted approach, which addresses both the issue of energy efficiency and income in relation to fuel poverty. This pincer approach is what the Government has been taking, and we will continue to squeeze.
Can I wish you all a productive and enjoyable conference and thank you for your continued work in helping the Government strive to reach these goals.
Page last modified: 20 September 2007
Page published:
20 September 2007