Energy Efficiency and Fuel Poverty

HC 37, Third Report of Session 2008-09 - Report, Together with Formal Minutes, Oral and Written Evidence

Author:

House of Commons - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee

Publisher:

TSO (The Stationery Office)

With failure to meet its statutory obligation to end fuel poverty imminent, the Government should instigate an action plan as a matter of urgency to help the millions of UK households who remain in fuel poverty as a result of fuel price rises.

This Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report on energy efficiency and fuel poverty recommends that the Winter Fuel Payment be made taxable and stopped for those paying higher rate tax. This would enable more funds to be directed to bigger and better-targeted energy efficiency programmes, aimed in the first instance at the fuel poor.

To ensure more rapid improvement of the entire English housing stock, the range of current energy efficiency programmes should be consolidated into one comprehensive area-based programme to upgrade all homes and to be delivered by local authorities.

The Committee wants the Government to:

• produce a detailed 'road map' setting out how to deliver a national plan to make every home in England energy efficient to a minimum SAP* level of 65 and to SAP 81 wherever practicable;

• create a central budget into which energy companies pay their CERT contributions so that they can be pooled with money from other programmes; and

• fund a single consolidated comprehensive, area-based programme led by local authorities to deliver the national plan.

(*SAP is the Government's Standard Assessment Procedure for Energy Rating of Dwellings and uses a scale of 1 to 100, with a higher rating indicating a better level of energy efficiency.)

The Committee also concludes that:

• Resources for tackling fuel poverty are inadequate and getting worse.

• Warm Front should see its budget increased rather than cut repeatedly and should now be extended to include all hard-to-treat properties.

• All schemes designed to help the fuel poor or improve energy efficiency would be better targeted if those organisations in charge of their delivery had better access to data on a range of variables, including energy efficiency levels in homes, household incomes and fuel costs.

• The Department of Energy and Climate Change should survey current data needs and access arrangements as a matter of urgency.

The Committee's November 2008 report on this topic (HC 1099, ISBN 9780215524447) is available to buy separately, please see below.

Extent	168 pages	ISBN	9780215530622
Size	A4	Price	£20.00
Binding	Paperback	Published	10 Jun 2009
Availability	Colour copy: 3 - 5 days	Delivery	Delivery options and charges

Mail to a Colleague