Written evidence to be reported to the House
Energy Bill
12:00 pm
Alistair Buchanan: There were two parts to the question. We are very keen to take the switching message to Scotland, and I know that Allan is as well. Switching in Scotland tends to run 2 to 3 per cent. below the 18 per cent. churn that there was last year in England. One of the substantial problems there is the housing issue. Housing renovation typically costs 10 times more with some of the poorly insulated housing in Scotland.
Looking at fuel poverty, there are three elements to it—50 per cent. is income, 15 per cent. is housing and 35 per cent. is the fuel bill. I am not trying to belittle the fuel bill, but it must be taken holistically. We are representing what we can do. We want to facilitate the opportunity to switch on the fuel price side. Clearly, housing and income sit with the Government and the instruments that they have. Taking Government as a lead into the targeting issue, it is extremely difficult to target the fuel poor.
The Warm Front programme ensures that one third of the fuel poor do not have access to it, which is an alarming statistic. With that in mind, Ofgem has launched a very good initiative with Citizens Advice—I have some of the guff with me—to ensure that its staff are well trained, so that they can ensure that they get people to get the best deal. Part of the problem is the confusion about what is the best deal. We have also funded research with Bristol university, ward by ward throughout the country, to try to analyse, through what we call our find and fix programme, who the fuel poor are.
Some practical issues could be addressed, such as returning to the days when a Department for Work and Pensions secondee would visit a fuel-poor person with the local company. Some macro issues, such as smart metering, can be addressed, and I hope that they will be. There will be a debate about social tariffs; but holistically, if you consider equalising the tariff, or setting a particular tariff for the fuel poor, it will be worth inquiring into how many people that might tip into fuel poverty. If you add a certain amount, assuming you do not expect the companies to pay for it, in which case I am sure that you spoke to them this morning and asked them to do so, it will be worth inquiring into how much more it will cost everybody else and what implications it will have for fuel poverty.