Fuel Poverty
Work and Pensions
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South, Labour)
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what recent progress he has made on reducing fuel poverty.
Gregory Barker (Minister of State (Climate Change), Energy and Climate Change; Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
I have been asked to reply
on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
DECC is committed to helping people, especially low-income vulnerable households, heat their homes more affordably.
Since 2000, the Warm Front scheme has assisted 2.3 million households, providing energy efficient heating and insulation measures to households vulnerable to fuel poverty. We expect the scheme to assist a further 90,000 households between April 2011 and March 2013. In addition, the Government have introduced the Warm Home Discount scheme which requires the six largest energy companies to provide discounts on energy bills. The scheme is worth up to £1.1 billion and will run from April 2011 to March 2015, helping around two million low income and vulnerable households per year.
The Government also provides winter fuel payments to pensioner households and cold weather payments to eligible households during periods of cold weather. This winter, Government have made 5,166,900 cold weather payments totalling £129,172,500.