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Fight must continue on fuel poverty

RadiatorDefra and BERR have today published the Sixth Annual Progress Report for the UK Fuel Poverty Strategy. The report, which highlights that the number of households in fuel poverty is rising, follows the Government’s recent announcement of a £1 billion Home Energy Saving Programme to help people cope with rising fuel prices.

Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn said:

“Since that announcement the Government has launched a major advertising campaign to encourage energy efficiency and advise people of the assistance available. This has resulted in almost 57,000 calls to our ACT ON CO2 helpline in the fortnight since the announcement. This is triple the number of calls normally received, so clearly people are responding to rising fuel bills.

“Today I am meeting with energy suppliers and the home insulation industry to stress the need for all of us to work together as fast as possible to make more homes energy efficient, and to discuss with them the opportunities for bringing forward insulation activity so the maximum number of people are able to benefit this winter.”

Today’s report includes details of the progress of the Fuel Poverty Strategy, presents the statistics on fuel poverty in the UK for 2006, and provides an update on government policies and programmes to tackle the issue.

Key findings of the report include:

  • The rise in the number of households in fuel poverty during 2006 was due to increases in consumer energy prices. The overall cost of energy to domestic consumers rose by 22 per cent in real terms between 2005 and 2006, with gas prices rising by 29 per cent and electricity prices rising by 19 per cent.
  • In 2006 there were approximately 3.5 million households in fuel poverty across the UK, an increase of one million households since 2005. Of these, around 2.75 million households were classified as vulnerable. A vulnerable household is one that contains an elderly person, a child or someone who is disabled or suffering from a long term illness.
  • In England, for 2006, there were estimated to be around 2.4 million fuel poor households, of which 1.9 million were vulnerable. This represents an increase of 900,000 households, including an additional 700,000 vulnerable households since 2005.

Further information

Page published: 2 October 2008