Fuel poverty group says meeting targets “impossible”

Fuel poverty group says meeting targets Government policies have made it impossible to meet fuel poverty targets, according to a report from its advisers.

The Fuel Poverty Advisory Group said targets to eradicate fuel poverty among vulnerable households by 2010 and all households by 2016 in England are unlikely to be met given government policy.

According to the group, 1.3 million vulnerable households will remain in fuel poverty in 2010 due to cutbacks in the winter fuel payments programme – but the 2016 target can still be met.

Extra payments for fuel could be funded by discontinuing payments for higher-rate taxpayers, which would free up £200 million a year, or by recovering windfall gains made by some electricity generators as a result of the EU emissions trading scheme, the group said in its report.

Energy companies were also criticised. The group said: “Gas and electricity customers in 2006 spent as much as £8 billion (60 per cent) more for their energy than in 2003 and nearly one-third of this increase appears to be attributable to improved margins, especially in electricity.”

Ofgem should protect the interests of customers much “more tenaciously”, the report added, and should give more priority to the interests of low income customers.

The much higher prices for prepayment and cash/cheque customers should be investigated, according to the report, adding Ofgem’s recently announced probe into energy markets will hopefully explain where the extra expenditure by electricity and gas customers has gone.

The 2008 price increases are expected to take the total number of people in fuel poverty to over three million. Of the 2.9 million in fuel poverty in 2007, the vast majority - 2.3 million - were vulnerable.

However, plans announced in the Budget for a significant increase in the companies’ social programmes and a determination to secure a narrowing of the differential between prepayment and other prices will be “very helpful”, the report said.