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Fuel Poverty

My hon. Friend makes an important point. There are such differences across the United Kingdom, and we must address them. The quality of life of so many people is affected by the difficulties that she mentions. The Help the Aged report found that 22 per cent. of households with someone over 75 had no central heating at all. We take central heating for granted. When we get up in the morning, the heating is on and the house is comfortable, but many people do not have what we consider to be normal. That cannot be acceptable today. The worst thing is that help is available. There is the warm front scheme in England and, in Wales, the new home energy efficiency scheme offers grants to older home owners and those living in rented accommodation and in receipt of benefits. Because of the previous Labour Administration, Scotland has done even better: it has a scheme that provides pensioners with new heating and insulation facilities regardless of whether they claim benefits. That is good, and perhaps the energy companies, which are making billions of pounds, might consider using some of their profits to help roll out such a scheme across the United Kingdom. Help the Aged estimates that £800 million will be spent on warm front and home energy projects up to this year. However, it maintains that that is still not enough and that we must consider the whole of Britain if we are to make real progress.