Yes, but this has not been a priority for local authorities and in the present period of austerity is unlikely to become so unless the strategy that the Minister comes up with in a few months’ time places that obligation on them and provides resources
to enable them to carry it out. At the other end, the income end, the data-sharing arrangements which were introduced in legislation—two Energy Bills ago, I think—have not fully worked in enabling suppliers to identify which of their customers are likely to be on benefits, which, itself, is only a very rough proxy of the fuel poor.
The document and the Minister have indicated that we need to be more targeted in our approach. Indeed, there is a significant element of prioritisation, so if we need to identify, first, those who are in deepest fuel poverty and take action with them initially, we need to have more detailed information, at least in broad terms. If we are to have an area approach, there is a bit of a conflict between that and a prioritisation on grounds of deepest fuel poverty or, indeed, the other priority identified in the document of serious health problems, which poses even more difficulties and is subject to data protection problems.
Given the Government’s emphasis on intervention in regard to energy efficiency, it is important to obtain clarity about the resources being put in by the Government or being diverted from consumers’ bills to deal with this. I asked the Minister whether the Government could indicate the total amount to be spent on fuel poverty determined energy efficiency interventions over, say, the next five years. The figures that NEA has come up with, comparing 2010-11 to this year, show a significant drop in intervention because not only did Warm Front, which was taxpayer-funded, end completely at the end of last year, although some schemes are still being completed, SERT and CESP were dropped and we all moved onto the ECO. We have another group of amendments dealing with the ECO and I do not want to go into those in detail now, but even assuming that the ECO works, in aggregate more than £200 million less is being diverted via taxpayers’ money or cross-subsidy from the consumer into fuel poverty and energy efficiency schemes. I will discuss later whether, even within that, the ECO is working most efficiently.
It is important to move forward on this issue and the government amendments are a significant step in that direction. Some of the documentation is still not adequate and we are unlikely to see any more before the Bill completes its passage. It could be another six to eight months before the secondary legislation appears, which takes us well into the second half of next year. By that time, according to most prognostications, energy prices will have risen, low-income households will not have seen an increase in their income and the tariffs that are likely to be offered under Ofgem’s new arrangements will not have been geared to attacking the problem of fuel poverty. That is the other area that is not covered in the Government’s policy statement, which I spoke of at probably excessive length in our previous Committee session—namely, that you can use the tariff structure as well as energy-efficiency interventions in order to improve.
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We probably need to accept that the Government have now determined the way in which we are going to go. There remain some very serious problems with what they have so far indicated to us of their strategy,
but at least that strategy will have a primary legislative base. We will need to ensure that the Government live up to the intentions that that implies. But we should not forget that in addition to a strategy, you need a delivery programme and enforcement powers, as my noble friend Lady Liddell said. You also need clarity about how to prioritise the different groups of the fuel poor—those in hard-to-heat houses, which cost more; those off the gas grid; those in rural areas, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said; and those in the private rented sector—for which the area approach is not necessarily the most effective in reducing fuel poverty numbers.
The Government will develop this strategy. We now have a new definition and we will have new targets based on that definition. But we should not forget that we have had one serious failure in this area of delivering a policy that all parties in this House and another place supported. We are reducing our ambitions and there are still 2.5 million people in England alone who are fuel poor. There are arguments for and against having the actual target in primary legislation. We will see how it is expressed. The Government are clearly determined on their approach.
In parallel with the targets, we need a consistent and defensible strategy, which convinces not only those of us in Westminster who take an interest in fuel poverty but explains how it works to the rest of the country. That needs a simplicity about it although it is a complex problem. The narrative and the communication of this strategy are going to be almost as important as the substance.
I thank the Government for coming so far. I hope that I have not been too grudging in my welcome. I have some serious doubts about aspects of the strategy. But I am sure that when we come back here in a few months’ time to develop the statutory instruments and there are new shiny documents about the strategy, we will at least be reassured on that. Given where we were when this Bill left the House of Commons, we will have taken a major step forward in putting fuel poverty centre-stage again.