Energy Prices, Fuel Poverty and Ofgem

Part of Estimates Day — [1st Allotted Day] — Vote on Account, 2009-10 — Office of Gas and Electricity Markets – in the House of Commons at 6:55 pm on 16 December 2008.

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Photo of Steve Webb Steve Webb Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change 6:55, 16 December 2008

In the limited time that we have available, I want to focus on fuel poverty and the role of Ofgem. I echo the comments made by Peter Luff; given the importance of the topic that we are debating, it is nonsense to have less than a couple of hours to do so. There clearly should have been some sort of injury time.

The official figures tell us that there are 3.5 million households in fuel poverty, that earlier this year there was an estimate of more than 4 million and that the latest estimate by the Government's own Fuel Poverty Advisory Group puts the number at between 5 million and 5.5 million households. That is astonishing. Will the Minister discuss with his officials why we have official statistics on this subject that are two years out of date? I understand that the reason is partly that the English house conditions survey has to be done and processed, individual consumption has to be applied to that and the numbers crunched. However, we could surely have a broad estimate of what has happened since the survey was done. We know what has happened to the prices of the main suppliers and to benefit levels, and it would not be too difficult to get an up-to-date figure. That is important, because the changes that go on in the market have a different impact on different people. We are almost trying to make policy with a blindfold on. If we are using the fuel poverty statistics to inform policy, we should not be using two-year old statistics. If some estimate were made of what has happened since then, it could inform us as to whether, for example, people using the gas main, pensioners or people living in particular areas had been prejudiced.