Government must focus on energy efficiency in UK homes to tackle fuel poverty
Greenwise Staff
15th March 2010
A report published today argues that the Government’s strategy on fuel poverty is now out of date and that it should focus its efforts on increasing energy efficiency in UK homes to tackle the problem going forward.
The report ‘
The Long Cold Winter: Beating Fuel Poverty’ by independent think tank the
Institute of Public Policy Research (ippr) argues that focusing on e
nergy efficiency and maximising the use of technological innovations, such as smart meters, micro-generation technologies and community-scale heating, are both more sustainable and cost effective ways of tackling
fuel poverty in the long run.
The report comes in the wake of the coldest winter in living memory and as the Government is reviewing its fuel poverty strategy. It concludes that the Government strategy currently focuses too much on simply helping people with paying their bills. It calls for “a radical new approach”, including the launch of a wider-ranging review of the strategy and the setting up of an independent fuel poverty commission.
“Extremely cold weather conditions seen in the UK over the past months have highlighted the pressing need for a radical overhaul of fuel poverty measures and policy,” said ippr co-director Carey Oppenheim. “Millions of households across the UK still struggle to afford adequate warmth and the fuel poverty strategy devised in 2001 is increasingly out of step with reality in 2010.
“We need a creative and inclusive approach to reach a solution, which breaks the cycle of short-term payments and measures. In particular we need to focus on making UK homes more green and more
fuel efficient so that it is more affordable to heat
homes.”
Fuel poverty worseningThe report argues that fuel poverty has been increasing in the last five years, despite Government targets to eradicate by 2016. There were an estimated 36,700 excess winter deaths in England and Wales in 2008 to 2009 – an increase of 49 per cent compared with figures for 2007 to 2008 – and the figures for 2009 to 2010 are expected to be higher still.
The ippr argues that as well as focusing on fuel efficiency, the Government must ensure that fuel poverty programmes funded through the energy companies are paid for in fair way and that the Government should match fund any extra money they are making the energy companies spend on fuel poverty programmes with additional funding for publicly-funded fuel poverty programmes.
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