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Anger at fuel poverty announcement

Posted: 05/02/2008

Environmentalists have reacted angrily to the recent announcement by the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group that a legally-binding target for tackling fuel poverty for vulnerable groups by 2010 will not be met. One in six British households is now living in fuel poverty, the highest for almost a decade. Fuel poverty is defined as when a household spends more than a tenth of its income on utility bills. The consumer group Energywatch says there are now about 4.4 million of these in the UK, and recent announcements of price rises by energy suppliers will exacerbate the situation.

Despite the likelihood of meeting the 2010 target becoming ever more remote, last month the government was accused of underfunding its 'Warm Front' programme, which provides grants for poor households to insulate their homes. It allocated £800m until 2010. However, the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group, a subdivision of DEFRA. now estimates £1.3bn is needed.

The Labour Party will not welcome the FPAG announcement. The Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act was passed in 2000 committing the government to the legally binding targets of eradicating fuel poverty in England among the vulnerable - pensioners, the disabled and long-term ill - by 2010. By 2016-18, the government is committed to eradicating fuel poverty entirely across the UK.

Ed Matthew, Green Homes Campaigner for Friends of the Earth said: Despite having a legally-binding duty to eliminate fuel poverty, the numbers suffering have doubled in the last five years. This shocking fact is a consequence of the government comprehensively failing to protect vulnerable households from energy price rises.

High levels of insulation and the use of zero-carbon technologies could help to permanently cut household energy bills by up to two thirds.  But the government's programme for tackling fuel poverty has been piece meal and consistently under-funded. A tough new approach is urgently needed to protect one of the most vulnerable groups in society and seize one of the easiest opportunities to cut climate changing emissions.

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