Fuel poverty hits an all-time low

Both NHIC and the NHIC Educational Trust are passionate about reducing levels of fuel poverty in the UK. A recent report in The Guardian, however, suggests that fuel poverty now affects an unprecedented quarter of all homes in the UK!

This is a result of our current economic malaise, the lack of movement in income increases and the exceptionally steep rise in energy bills!

Indeed, according to the report, statistics indicate that the average family faces the worst squeeze on incomes since records began in 1950! As a result, fuel poverty is reaching record levels.

In Wales 40% of the total households are now fuel poor. In the midlands and north-east it’s around 30% and in the north-west it’s a similar picture. In the south-east fuel poverty figure is 17%!

This all amounts to some 5m households going cold this winter! There are about 26m households in the UK!

The Guardian reports that about 2.5m people are already in debt to their energy suppliers and obviously this is increasing. The average home fuel arrears is well over £300!

Dr Brenda Boardman, a fellow at Oxford University, is said to expect each 1% rise in fuel costs ‘to push at least another 40,000 households into fuel poverty!’

There is a legal duty that government must eliminate fuel poverty by 2016! But this looks even further away than ever!

(Photo from the NIA)

More information: www.family-action.org.uk and www.nationalinsulationassociation.org.uk