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Fuel Poverty

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) on securing the debate. Fuel poverty is linked to deprivation: unaffordable fuel prices combined with poor housing stock, often characterised by inadequate insulation and inefficient heating systems, make life a misery for millions of people in our country. The latest figures show that more than 4 million households across Britain cannot afford to keep warm at a reasonable cost. I am proud that the Government have made great strides in tackling this problem with measures such as the winter fuel payment, but that is becoming increasingly futile, given that the energy companies seem intent on record-breaking price increases. It is deplorable that, as we greeted the new year, npower, which makes billions of pounds in profit, announced another increase in customer bills. That move, so soon after Christmas, will cause only heartache and misery for millions of people, and I thought it rather cynical to slip out that announcement when most of the country was on holiday, celebrating Christmas and the new year. The average npower customer will now pay more than £1,000 a year for their energy, but many who use prepayment meters will pay even more, as my hon. Friend noted in his opening remarks. I join those who roundly condemn that move, and I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has decided to take up this issue and meet the energy regulator. I hope that he will do his absolute best to ensure that the regulator finds ways to intervene in this matter, so that we can have the excessive fuel price increases dramatically reduced. The impact of such price rises on fuel-poor consumers, many of whom are in low-income households, will be devastating and are likely to push thousands more people, including many pensioners, into fuel poverty. Many people who are fuel poor do not necessarily know that they are. That may seem an extraordinary statement, but many simply accept the difficulties that they are living in. I can illustrate that point rather markedly. Ahead of this debate, I contacted the secretary of the National Old Age Pensioners Association of Wales—I happen to be the association's president—to ask for examples of how the new fuel prices will impact on pensioners. He did not have any examples, but thought that the majority of his members simply accept that rising fuel prices are a fact of life and said that, when they get cold, they will slip on an extra pullover or heat only one room. That should not be happening in Britain in this century. Many pensioners in Wales have illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes, and many who are ex-miners have lung diseases. They often have high fuel bills because of their health problems and need to keep their homes at much higher temperatures than other people. That problem is even worse in older and poorly insulated houses. In Wales, older people bear the brunt of increases in fuel prices. Some 50 per cent. of the population there are pensioners, 20 per cent. of the population do not have access to mains gas and 250,000 households live in fuel poverty. Some 43 per cent. of fuel-poor households in Wales are pensioner households and almost 31 per cent. of those pensioners are single—often widows and widowers—and desperately trying to make ends meet. Those pensioners face a double whammy, because electricity prices in Wales are 10 per cent. higher than in England. A report produced by Help the Aged in 2005 found that 1.5 million inadequately insulated homes across Britain are occupied by someone over 65 who cannot afford the heating costs.