New figures showing the number of people in fuel poverty in England underline the lack of provisions made for them in the Budget, a charity has warned.
The statistics released by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) today (4 March) revealed that as of 2019 an estimated 13.4 per cent of households (3.18 million) were in fuel poverty under the new Low Income Low Energy Efficiency (LILEE) metric set out last month.
This is a 1.6 percentage decrease from the previous year’s figure of 3.52 million people, which the government says is down to improvements in energy efficiency.
Additionally, the government has outlined progress towards its statutory target of getting all fuel poor households to an energy efficiency rating of band C or higher by 2030.
Almost half (47.8 per cent) of all low-income households were living in properties with an energy efficiency rating of A, B or C, an increase of 33.2 percentage points since 2010 and 6.4 percentage points since 2018.
However National Energy Action (NEA) has raised concerns about there being a lack of provision for fuel poor households in chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Budget, unveiled yesterday.
Matt Copeland, policy manager at NEA, said the budget “looks to be lacking” given the number of people currently in fuel poverty.
Adam Scorer, NEA chief executive, added: “Yesterday’s Budget lacked any new support to help fuel poor households, and nothing more to help the government meet their statutory obligations.
“After a long delay, we now have a Fuel Poverty Strategy for England. This has the right guiding principles to address this national issue but we need action, not words in a government document.
“Sustained funding is needed to improve the least efficient homes occupied by those on the lowest incomes and help those with utility debt which has been building up over the crisis.”
NEA is calling on the government to announce the remaining energy efficiency commitments in the Conservative manifesto for the Home Upgrade Grant Scheme and Social housing Decarbonisation Fund, up to the end of the current parliament.
Additionally it calls for the enhancement of Fuel and Water Direct to help accelerate the repayment of utility debts and for the government to extend and strengthen the increase to Universal Credit beyond October this year.