Lord Ezra
Lord Ezra, founder chairman of the National Home Improvement Council, highlighted in the drastic increase in fuel poverty at question time in the House of Lords, on 16 February.
The government submitted that an increasing number of people are living in fuel poverty defined as a household spending 10% of its income on fuel. The Liberal Democrat and former chairman of the National Coal Board, Lord Ezra said 5 million homes – a fifth of the national total – were now affected.
Lord Ezra said: “Can the Minister indicate the annual rate at which homes are currently being taken out of fuel poverty and, secondly, do the government remain committed to the objective of eliminating fuel poverty by all reasonably practical means by 2016 as laid down in the Warms Home and Energy Conservation Act 2000?”
The Energy Minister Lord Marland welcomed the question from the man he knew as ‘King Coal’. He told peers the government had commissioned Professor John Hills to review both the target for reducing fuel poverty and the way it was defined. Professor Hills is due to publish his report shortly.
Lord Marland
Lord Marland said: “Since 2005 fuel poverty has gone up from 2.5m homes in the UK to 5million. Now this is a very serious problem which all of us wish to grapple with particularly at these times of economical difficulty.
And so the government is very committed to that and I don’t want to prejudge Professor Hills’ report but we look forward to it and we’ve initiated it!”
He said that government was committed to reducing fuel poverty to nothing but until he had received Professor Hills’ report and the definition had been reworked, he couldn’t comment any further.
The Labour peer Lady Lister asked what the government’s view was of a campaign to put a levy on the big six energy companies using the money to make homes more energy efficient.
Also, the Conservative former chancellor Lord Lawson offered to be of ‘assistance’, as he put it, and suggested a way to cut fuel poverty at a stroke!
He said: “That is to abolish the whole raft of measures from the carbon floor price to the renewals obligations and massive subsidies for wind power, all designed to push up energy costs at the expense of fuel poverty and the expense of British industry and the British economy. And, to no other effect, in the absence of a global decarbonisation agreement which he knows perfectly well is not on the cards!”
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