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Mr. Maclean: I listened carefully while the hon. Gentleman told us that when he was a student he was so cold he had to sit wearing his coat, woolly hat and gloves. In those circumstances, did he find Edwina Currie's advice to wear a woolly hat offensive or sensible?
Mr. Brake: As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, I followed her advice--or rather pre-empted it, as I was a student many years before she made that recommendation.
I shall be brief because I am aware that many Labour Members want to speak, as we witnessed earlier when an inadvertent movement by the hon. Member for Southend, West caused a Mexican wave on the Government Benches. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) sets such store by his commitment to environmental protection and social justice that he has stated that the Bill is crucial for our social justice and environmental agenda. He said that if the Government do not support it, they will stand condemned on both counts.
I tried to obtain advance confirmation from the Government as to whether they would support the Bill, but my telephone call went unanswered. However, I hope
that the Government will support it; the Liberal Democrats want that--as do an overwhelming majority of Members in the Chamber today. It is certainly what millions of people living in fuel poverty want.
Environmental issues are often perceived to be the preserve of the chattering middle classes. The Bill gives the lie to that myth. It shows that saving the planet is about saving the people who inhabit it, that environmental and social concerns are inextricably linked and that sustainability is economic as well as environmental. Too often, it is claimed that environmental action loses jobs and slows economic growth. As several hon. Members have already pointed out, that would not be true of the Bill, because it could result in the creation of up to 30,000 jobs.
Fuel poverty is a scandal, as every hon. Member would agree. It represents the failure of successive Governments to ensure that our citizens live in warm, dry homes. Surely, that is one the most basic human rights--on a par with the right to clean water or food. In the 21st century, no one should be denied that right.
Government figures shows that four out of 10 pensioner households live in fuel poverty. Despite the Government's welcome winter fuel payments, millions of pensioners are still shivering in cold, damp homes. Members will be aware of that from their constituency visits. Unless the Government are prepared to guarantee the winter fuel payments in perpetuity--no Government could actually do that--pensioners who are gaining a little warmth at the moment, because of that extra payment, could be shivering in the future, if the money is withdrawn.
Our failure to tackle the root cause of the problem--poorly insulated and poorly heated homes--means that we are heating the air above people's houses. Other hon. Members have told us of the number of UK households that live in fuel poverty and the number of people affected by the problem. The effect on the poor, elderly and disabled is clear. The number of excess deaths in England and Wales was 48,000.
Hon. Members will probably also be aware, from their briefings, that England and Wales have higher excess winter mortality rates than any European countries other than Ireland and Portugal. Our rates are extremely high compared to those in Scandinavian and central European countries, even though their climates are much tougher.
The success of the Scandinavian countries, in particular, in reducing their excess winter deaths must be attributable, at least in part, to their much higher insulation standards. Although the death rate in the UK rises by about 30 per cent. during the winter, in Norway and Sweden, that rise is only 10 per cent.
Mr. Forth:
Does the hon. Gentleman have any information about the source of the investment to produce those much better conditions in Scandinavian countries? Is it because private individuals decide to invest in their homes or because the Government channel taxpayers' money into such measures? I am sure that he will recognise the importance of that question; the debate has not yet scratched the surface of the source of the moneys that would be deployed as a result of the Bill. Who is paying whom?
Mr. Brake:
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am not able to give him chapter and verse
The Bill would undoubtedly reduce the massive increase in illnesses that are exacerbated by cold and damp, such as influenza, bronchitis and asthma. It would certainly reduce the pressure on the NHS, allowing the service's stretched resources--the subject of much comment over the past few weeks--to be diverted away from easily preventable illnesses to those that are more serious.
I regret that there are no official estimates of the cost to the NHS of excess mortality or morbidity. I hope that the Minister will commission some research on that point, or will ask the appropriate Department to do so. Other hon. Members have referred to the figure of £1 billion estimated by the Association for the Conservation of Energy.
As has been pointed out, the Royal College of Nursing drew attention to a programme of home energy improvements in Cornwall. The RCN estimates that, as a result of that programme, the saving to the NHS is about £500 per household per year. That is a substantial sum by anyone's standards. It is always risky to extrapolate figures for the whole country from one study, but if one assumed that similar savings could be made for all households suffering from fuel poverty, the figure could be £3 billion or £4 billion--a large saving.
Many children who live in cold homes underachieve at school, because they have nowhere dry and warm to work. The Bill would go some way to solving that problem.
The Bill is about joined-up government--something that the Government often talk about. It is about social inclusion; it is good for people. It is also good for the environment. Instead of spending money on fossil fuels--the consumption of which contributes to climate change--we should spend money on conserving the energy that we already use.
Yesterday, the Government launched their climate change strategy, which rightly pointed out that reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, in all energy use sectors, would be necessary if the Government are to meet their international commitment to reduce such emissions. The Bill will help to deliver a reduction in emissions in the domestic sector that will enable the Government to achieve not only the legally binding Kyoto commitment of 12.5 per cent., but their 20 per cent. target. Hon. Members should focus on that, as the Government are, rather worryingly, speaking of "moving towards" their 20 per cent. target, whereas they have given a firm guarantee that they will deliver on their legally binding 12.5 per cent. commitment.
The Bill is good for the economy. We have heard that it would create 30,000 long-term jobs. Interestingly, the savings to the Exchequer that would result from those jobs would be about £300 million a year, or £4.5 billion over 15 years at today's prices. I am assured that that is a conservative figure, based on an estimate that the average cost of unemployment for someone who has previously been on average earnings is about £10,000 per claimant. That excludes the effects of a reduction in indirect tax collected, as a result of changed spending patterns once the person becomes unemployed, and other costs such as an increase in demand for the NHS and social services.
The Government have promised to eradicate fuel poverty. Senior Ministers are on record as describing fuel poverty as a scandal. The Deputy Prime Minister rightly said:
The Prime Minister said that he wants to end child poverty within 20 years. I welcome that, too, but the Government will not eradicate child poverty unless they also eradicate fuel poverty.
Mrs. Linda Gilroy (Plymouth, Sutton):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) on the choice of subject for his private Member's Bill. If it does not thoroughly ruin his reputation, may I say that I also approve of the way in which he has taken the Bill that I promoted in previous Sessions and refined, developed and--if I dare use the word without totally ruining his reputation--modernised what we were doing? That modernisation has come about through the work of the all-party warm homes group and the warm homes Bill group, and the hearing to which the hon. Gentleman referred, in which his colleagues, the hon. Members for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Mr. Loughton), and also the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell), participated.
We have been examining the costs in detail. When I first became associated with the campaign and looked into the costs, I was convinced that the Government would not consider putting taxation up to the level necessary to meet those costs, so we had to find other solutions. The all-party group has been working hard on a report, and I particularly welcome the contribution of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, who has deployed his considerable experience in the financial world.
Working with the warm homes group has been one of the most rewarding experiences that I have had in the almost three years that I have been in Parliament. The group brings us together to tackle a task described by the director of Ofgem recently as "awesome". Although much has been achieved, much remains to be done.
I pay tribute to the organisations that back the campaign, including the Association for the Conservation of Energy, Church Action on Poverty, the National Housing Federation, National Energy Action, Unison, Friends of the Earth, the National Right to Fuel Campaign and, most appropriately, the Child Poverty Action Group and Help the Aged.
The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) said that if we were serious about child poverty, we must tackle fuel poverty. The same is true of pensioner poverty.
The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) asked whether there were subsets of the poor; there certainly are. They range from the pensioner who is fairly comfortably off in well-insulated sheltered housing, who may be paying 6 to 7 per cent. of his or her income on fuel--which is the average in the population--to the more common experience among pensioners, where fuel payments take up to 16 or 17 per cent. of their income. As we heard earlier, there are those in extreme poverty who spend 20 per cent. or more of their income on fuel.
I invite hon. Members, as I have done in previous contributions, to consider how they would feel if they had to pay out 20 per cent.--or even 30 per cent., a figure that I have seen--of their income to accommodate their fuel needs.
The Government have already taken significant steps, which makes it difficult to put a price and a time scale on the programme to eliminate fuel poverty. We heard mention of the private sector and the particular challenges there. The hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) highlighted the difficulties that may be faced in the private rented sector. I hope that we can debate that aspect further in Committee.
The Government have refocused the home energy efficiency scheme on the fuel poor, and from June grants will be increased from £315 to £1,000, or £2,000 for elderly people on low incomes. To qualify for that scheme, a household must accommodate a child under 16 or someone over 60 who is in receipt of various benefits. The scheme will focus on owner-occupiers and the private sector.
The Government have also been concentrating on the repair of local authority housing through the release of capital receipts, to which I referred earlier. In addition, they have reduced VAT on fuel to the minimum level; introduced a tax-free fuel allowance, which has been quadrupled to its present rate of £100; and reduced the gas levy, which is helping to keep prices down.
On the income side, the oldest and poorest pensioners will have an increase of £700 a year for single householders and £1,000 for couples through the minimum income guarantee. The working families tax credit will lift 700,000 to 800,000 children out of poverty. All these policies and others, working together, are beginning to tackle fuel poverty. However, there is still much more to be done, at both national and local level.
Since 1997, my local energy efficiency office, through its home energy action team, has been working with 174 households, 83 per cent. of which are on benefit, and looking not just at what work can be done, but at the impact that that will have. The first results are now available, which show savings of £158.66--three times the figure originally expected. That has an average effect equivalent to an increase of 2.9 per cent. in household income. It also increases comfort levels in those homes and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by an estimated 1,214 kg per household.
I am pleased that the Government recognise how much more still needs to be done. They have set up an interministerial team, whose remit, membership and programme of work were outlined in written answers to
parliamentary questions from me on 21 December and 27 January, which show how serious the Government are about tackling fuel poverty.
However, there is much more to do. The Bill would help to build on that approach through providing for a fuel poverty reduction strategy to be published and laid before Parliament. It will emphasise what energy efficiency can achieve in poverty reduction. I am especially keen on clause 2(2)(b), which would bring in the private sector and enable householders who suffered from fuel poverty to have access to appropriate fuel tariffs.
Some of the big companies, such as PowerGen, TXU Eastern Energy, and Scottish Power have been particularly active in working on these issues and--on energy efficiency though not on pricing--Transco has recently launched a £30 million project, which will help to build on the Bill.
One of the obscenities of the 1980s was the failure to tackle the problem of keeping our elderly people warm in winter.
The Environment Minister went further and stated:
The preventable scourge of fuel poverty still remains an indictable menace in our society.
Hundreds of hon. Members have signed early-day motions, written letters, issued press releases and promised their constituents that they would support the Bill. I welcome that.
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