Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of households in fuel poverty.
Answered by Claire Perry
Government is addressing fuel poverty by improving home energy efficiency and making energy more affordable for vulnerable households. Parliament has passed legislation to introduce an energy price cap, protecting households on standard variable and default tariffs in addition to the protection provided by the pre-payment and vulnerable customer safeguard tariffs. Over 2 million low income and vulnerable households will also benefit this winter from the Warm Home Discount, a £140 rebate on their energy bill which we have committed to through to 2021 and all pensioner households receive between £100 and £300 over the winter months through the Winter Fuel Payment.
We have also announced that we will focus all of the £640 million per year Energy Company Obligation on low income and vulnerable households from 2018 to 2022. This new scheme will also include support for innovation, aimed at improving quality and reducing the cost of technologies that will be required to meet the fuel poverty target. Beyond those dates, we committed through the Clean Growth Strategy to extending support for energy efficiency at least at the current level of ECO through to 2028, meaning over £6 billion of investment will be made into home energy efficiency over the next ten years. In addition, we introduced legislation in April this year requiring private landlords to improve the energy efficiency of F and G rated properties, so that all tenants can heat their home at a reasonable cost.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to support consumers in financial difficulty to meet their energy costs.
Answered by Claire Perry
Protecting low income and vulnerable consumers when it comes to their energy costs is a priority for this Government. This is why the Energy Company Obligation, our main domestic energy efficiency scheme, will now be solely focused on upgrading the homes of those on low incomes to help tackle the root cause of fuel poverty.
The Government has also recently extended the Warm Home Discount scheme, which supports over 2 million low income and vulnerable households by cutting £140 off their winter energy bills.
The Government is also introducing the energy price cap to protect over 11 million households on poor value standard variable tariff deals this winter.