Fuel Poverty — House of Commons, 2018-12-11
Topic: Energy
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): If ever we needed an example of how the Brexit omnishambles is squeezing out time for important debates on issues that matter to our constituents, this is a perfect case in point. There is so much to say. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on fuel poverty and energy efficiency, I wish we had more time For example, a report published by the Institute for Public Policy Research in June showed that the Government are set to miss their fuel poverty targets by 60 years. It is not that the Government do not know how to reverse the situation—indeed, they have even set a goal to do so, in both their manifesto and their recent clean growth strategy. The tragedy is that in recent years the Government have scrapped, reversed or shelved many of the measures that could actually have helped. It is truly shocking that, for example, we are in the absurd situation where the UK Government are not investing any public funds in improving domestic energy efficiency through insulation, particularly in England. In 2018, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, that is nothing short of a moral failure The frustration is that many of us know that tackling fuel poverty by investing in energy efficiency could be a real win-win, bringing people’s fuel bills down, tackling climate change and creating jobs. Despite clear evidence of that win-win-win, the funding for energy efficiency in this year’s Budget was zilch. Quite why the Government can find £30 billion to fix potholes and improve roads but not to keep people warm is beyond me Many of us had hoped that the Government would use their response to the national infrastructure assessment to make progress on this issue. They did not. Published quietly alongside this year’s Budget, it did not even make reference to the Government’s statutory fuel poverty targets, let alone commit to the additional investment needed to meet them. The impact of the Government’s complacency will be felt long beyond the effects of fuel poverty today. As we know, a few months ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report, saying that we have just 12 years to halve global emissions if there is to be any chance of meeting the 1.5° threshold The Committee on Climate Change has repeatedly made it clear that improving energy efficiency through better insulating our homes is crucial to our existing climate targets. We need those policies now, well before the long-term targets of the Climate Change Act 2008 are amended in line with the latest IPCC report and the Paris climate agreement. The withdrawal of incentives has cut home insulation installations to 5% of 2012 levels. That is a shameful failure, and it has to change. We need a massive programme of home insulation if we are to make a meaningful contribution to the global project of protecting our planet and our children’s future. We also need to have not just the big six energy companies, which are profiting from this situation; we should have 60,000 energy companies and more, as they do in Germany. We should have real community energy, not as a "nice to have" but as a genuine, essential measure.