Fuel Poverty: harsh times ahead must catalyse changes in behaviour

The Department for Environment, Food And Rural Affairs (Defra)'s annual report, launched on Tuesday (20 May 2008), highlights that there has been a slippage against the objective to "eliminate fuel poverty in vulnerable households by 2010".

Between 1996 and 2004, the total number of households in fuel poverty fell from 5.1 million to 1.2 million, but rose to1.5 million in 2005 (around 7 per cent of all households). Given the age of the data, the numbers today are likely to be much higher, as a result of fuel prices having doubled since 2005. Uswitch predicts a rise of 46 per cent this year, and Goldman Sachs, up to 40 per cent.

Fuel poverty is commonly defined through three factors: the energy efficiency of the property, household income and the price of fuel. The latter two of these factors are clearly more affected by market forces and other forces not easily tackled. Critically, cheap fuel and rising standards of living have only helped us wreak havoc on our planet and improvements to these won't help us minimise greenhouse gas emissions.

Warm Front and Decent Homes programmes have delivered much progress on improving the energy efficiency of vulnerable households, but a much broader range of people will be dreading their fuel bills hitting the doormat or going to top up their energy keys this winter.

Behaviour change is a comparatively cheap solution with immediate impact and has a much lower carbon footprint than any physical intervention. It should be given much higher priority and included as one the factors that affect fuel poverty.

Stakeholders across the housing sector must take urgent action to educate and enable householders in existing housing stock to make simple and rewarding changes this year.

Defra's Annual Report 2008 is available online here: http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/deprep/default.htm

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