Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380-399)
JOAN RUDDOCK
MP AND MR
CHRIS LEIGH
14 JANUARY 2009
Q380 Lynne Jones: Back on the subject!
One of the issues is that people in local authority housing are
not eligible for Warm Front, and we need perhaps to join up there
as well. The question I am supposed to be asking returns to a
theme that I was raising with you earlier and is probably being
looked at as part of your review, and that is a large proportion
of the Government's spending on anti-fuel poverty measures is
on the Winter Fuel Payments and yet only 12 per cent of them are
actually fuel poor. So are you looking at whether this is the
best way of spending that money? What are your thoughts on this
area?
Joan Ruddock: This is a very,
very difficult one because although you are absolutely correct
in making the point about those who are technically fuel poor,
and the vast majority therefore are not who will be receiving
these payments, this is a measure that was decided upon as a means
of giving confidence to elderly people who, of course, tend to
be the people who are in their own homes for the longest periods
of time. By definition, as pensioners, they are at the elderly
end of the spectrum of the population, and it was to give them
confidence that they could heat their homes in difficult times
and in bad weather, when their instincts might be not to spend
the money. So it is much more about giving confidence to a very
large swathe of the population that they have a bit of extra money
and, therefore, they can keep the temperature up or increase it
if they need to.
Q381 Lynne Jones: One of a number
of suggestions is that it should be withdrawn from people who
are Higher Rate taxpayers or focused entirely on people who are
fuel poor. Would that not address that particular concern? It
is highly unlikely that somebody who is a Higher Rate taxpayer
is going to be worried about those sorts of things.
Joan Ruddock: That is a suggestion
that has been made but, to my knowledge, the department concerned,
which obviously is not our department, has no plans to make that
change at the moment.
Q382 Lynne Jones: Have you done any
calculations on how much of the Winter Fuel Allowance is going
to people who are not fuel poor or who are Higher Rate taxpayers
and contrasting that with the cost of extending the Winter Fuel
Payments to other vulnerable householders—for example, people
who are under 60 who are disabled and do not get anything? They
are also people who come into a similar category of perhaps spending
a lot of time in their households. Is there not something a little
wrong with the priorities?
Joan Ruddock: I think we have
to be careful here because disability benefits recognise disability
and the disadvantages of being a disabled person.
Q383 Lynne Jones: So do elderly persons'
benefits.
Joan Ruddock: The disability benefits,
of course, can be added to other benefits, and I think we have
to be very careful before we get ourselves into a position where
we suddenly are talking about whole new swathes of the population
being deemed to be in some way fuel poor. I do not think we can
get into that situation. We have our definition of "fuel
poor", and we have gone over that ground earlier. So I do
not think that is the way forward. I agree with you that the department,
DWP, could look at the Winter Fuel Payments from the point of
view of whether it is justified for Higher Rate taxpayers, but
that would be a decision for them. As I said, it is based on a
concept which is somewhat different from simply tackling fuel
poverty.
Q384 Lynne Jones: Have you got any
estimate of the cost of extending the Winter Fuel Allowance to
all vulnerable households that are in the definition of your fuel
poverty targets?
Joan Ruddock: No, because there
are no plans to do it.
Q385 Mr Williams: To those people
who receive the Winter Fuel Payment, do you calculate how many
of those are then taken out of fuel poverty? In making that calculation
do you assume that they spend the whole amount of that money on
fuel in that sense, or do you just add it on to their income and
then calculate whether they are paying 10 per cent or more on
fuel?
Joan Ruddock: I can tell you that.
Again, I am afraid it is English figures only. What we know is
that we could not reasonably say with accuracy that everyone who
got that payment put it to their fuel bill, and, because we cannot
say that, we cannot say exactly what is the consequence of that
money going towards the fuel bill. What we understand from looking
at this issue is that the Winter Fuel Payments have been responsible
for taking around 100,000 households out of fuel poverty in England,
on the last available date when we had comprehensive figures,
which was 2006. If we had assumed that they applied the money
directly to their fuel bills we would double the number who come
out of fuel poverty—it would be 200,000.
Q386 Mr Cox: Minister, could I raise
a question about Cold Weather Payments, which is just beginning
to enter into my mailbag so I would be very interested to hear
what you have to say in relation to it? Cold Weather Payments
are granted if there has been a seven-day consecutive zero temperature,
but I understand that the department responsible measures temperature
in some rather odd ways, in that it adopts the measuring stations
that the Met Office has. What that means, in my constituency,
for example, is that the thousands of people who live on Dartmoor
are having their temperature measured in the centre of Plymouth,
which, as you can probably imagine, is not a particularly reliable
guide as to what the temperature is like on the Moor, let alone
the High Moor. The consequence of this has been that they have
been deprived of Cold Weather Payments, whereas there are many
people who, as you have already pointed out, have pretty poor
energy-efficient homes on Dartmoor, many of whom are vulnerable
people—the elderly and infirm- who ought to be getting that
payment. I wondered if you had any reaction to the news I have
given you. The other example is a measurement of temperature at
Chivenor, which is on the Cornish coast, for a whole swathe of
countryside across North Devon. Although I quite see that you
have got to measure it somewhere, would it not be better to have
some system which was more accurately reflective of the real conditions
people were having to endure?
Joan Ruddock: You raise a very
interesting point, and I hasten to add I have not had this point
raised with me, which does not mean to say that letters are not
coming to the department raising them.
Q387 Mr Cox: They are about to!
Joan Ruddock: You might already
have written to me but I have not personally seen the letter.
It is a very interesting point you raise. I guess your own point—that
you have to measure somewhere and you have to have a measuring
station—means that it is not obvious how you would deal
with this matter. I am very happy to look into it because it,
clearly, as you say, suggests there is a real sense of injustice
there and that people have not been helped when they should have
been. Whether there is anything that can be done I do not know,
but of course I am very happy to look at it.
Mr Cox: The application of a bit of intelligence
could come up with one or two suggestions. Perhaps we could get
together. Perhaps I could ask you to meet a few people with ideas.
Chairman: Somewhere warm, perhaps. This
is not another bid, is it, for more—
Mr Williams: It is a similar situation
with people living on the Beacons, whose temperature is measured
in Swansea, but anyway it has been reviewed. There is a thing
that we have been engaged with, so it has been reviewed, but there
has been no solution, so I understand it.
Q388 Chairman: Before we all bid
for a re-measurement, I am sure the Minister will look at it.
Joan Ruddock: I will look at it
but I would just say that despite the fact that you have found
people who have not been able to get this, five million people
have received the payment, compared to half-a-million last year.
Q389 Chairman: Minister, can I just
bring you back, because you slightly side-stepped the line of
questioning which Lynne Jones was putting to you about the effective
use of this £2 million which covers Winter Fuel Payments.
You, effectively, said that the terms and conditions of this particular
payment are DWP and, as far as you knew, they had no plans to
change that. However, at the beginning, you pointed out that you
were carrying out a series of reviews about the effectiveness
of policy in this area. Therefore, it would not be, perhaps, wrong
to suggest that this ought to be looked at. It is a considerable
sum of money, the economy is under pressure and we have to make
the best use of what resources we have. So we seek an assurance
that at least this will be looked at in terms of effectiveness
and in terms of trying to deal with the fuel poverty issue.
Joan Ruddock: Let me give you
this assurance: that there will be nothing that is off the agenda,
as far as I am concerned, in looking at these programmes. However,
I do have to make it clear that it would be DWP Ministers who
would be making the decision, but if I am invited to look around
government and see where there might be pockets of money then—
Q390 Chairman: It does not stop you,
as a Departmental Minister, raising it in the time-honoured fashion
for circulation to colleagues to comment.
Joan Ruddock: Not at all, not
at all.
Lynne Jones: So that we have joined-up
government.
Q391 Chairman: Absolutely, Lynne!
Joan Ruddock: Nothing is off the
agenda. I will look with interest at the issue of the Cold Weather
Payments, which again, of course, are not administered by my department
but by DWP. Your letters, even though they came to me, would get
sent on.
Chairman: One must never, from the Chair,
anticipate what colleagues will agree as the Committee's conclusion,
but if we were to come to a conclusion that reviewing that will
be one thing, we are already looking forward, with bated breath,
to your saying: "What a good idea, I'll include that".
Q392 Mr Drew: We have already mentioned
Kirklees, and obviously this is the Blue Riband of community involvement
in trying to deal with fuel poverty and climate change strategies.
With the benefit of your new look, let us look forward, Joan.
There is a confusion of policies in this area, whether it be Warm
Front, CERT or the new Community Energy Saving Programme. Would
it not be better to localise this and actually give local authorities
money and ask them to match fund it, and say, even if they get
it wrong, as you pointed out on one occasion, they would be better
to get it delivered on the ground rather than this panoply of
different policies?
Joan Ruddock: If I could defend
the existing policy, I think it has been right to say: "You
energy companies are obliged to do this work. Go out there and
find the most cost-effective and simple way of doing it".
It was easy; they could find loads and loads of households where
these measures could be done cost-effectively and simply, and
they could get on and produce a lot of good results. As time goes
on, those measures that have been taken now will come to an end
anyway. So even if it were not for the fact that we have a real
interest in the community-based approach, the old approaches will
clearly have to change, and we have to have regard to the one-third
of properties which are hard to treat, which are really not being
dealt with to any degree in the current scheme. So we have to
change quite a lot in the future. That is not going to be done
overnight, but one of the ways in which we will test out some
of our aspirations is with a Community Energy Savings Programme
which is, again, as I have indicated, in these three consultation
documents. One of them is on the Community Energy Savings Programme.
We will get secondary legislation this year and I hope that we
would start in the Autumn, and they would be community based.
They would have partnerships but, at the same time, I am interested
in seeing could they be directed into the poorest areas of the
country and what we could learn from doing it, probably, house-to-house
and street-by-street but within poor areas, so that we could try
to get all of these measures working together, and all of these
agencies working together.
Q393 Chairman: Would that also cover
the implications for data sharing?
Joan Ruddock: Data sharing is
planned, as you know, for pensioners for pension data, and there
could be requirements for data sharing. Again, I have been asked
to consider what kind of guidance might be given on this, and
it is all part of the consideration. I could not say more than
that because the scheme is not designed at the moment.
Q394 Mr Drew: Is it fair to say that
we will be pulling a number of these strands together?
Joan Ruddock: Yes.
Mr Drew: Is it not sensible that
it is pulled under DECC's command? The point being that you have
got DWP, you have got the Treasury, you have got Defra, who will
remain with responsibility, and you have got local government.
That must, to some extent, undermine the effectiveness of a streamlined
policy, which is really how you have got to deliver this. Is that,
again, one of your notes you will be sending round, as the Chairman
said—
Q395 Lynne Jones: Just adding on
to that—all the different energy companies. If you have
got British Gas and all the different energy companies, all with
residents or customers in the same street, how do you get that
kind of streamlined approach?
Joan Ruddock: This will be part
of the challenge, and that is what we will be trying to work through
in the consultation. We are very clear that we want to do it at
the community level; there could be different kinds of communities,
different kinds of housing stock and, obviously, different areas
of the country, but we need to combine the aspects where we can
and, I hope, direct these measures in this way, in a coherent
and linked up way, into very poor communities. That will be a
learning process which will then assist us in working out where
to go beyond the end of CERT. We clearly indicated that we want
programmes going forward, and that has been indicated to the energy
companies—that there will be an obligation which will continue—but,
as to the form of that obligation, everything has to be worked
out.
Q396 Dr Strang: When do you expect
your new department to announce its proposals for the post-2011
supplier obligations?
Joan Ruddock: We are, as I said,
consulting. There are these three consultations, and that will
be relevant to the post-2011 situation. What we have done is to
give an indication that we will go on with some obligations. We
have a call for evidence from the companies as to, particularly,
whether they thought we should separate social obligations from
energy efficiency obligations and environmental obligations, and,
on the latter, all of the companies said we should make that separation.
So we know some things about the shape, where we are likely to
go, but there is more work to be done on that, and I will ask
Chris if he wants to add anything.
Mr Leigh: Just to add a little
bit of detail, the three consultations that the Minister has mentioned
will be about the 20 per cent increase in the present CERT obligation
that has already been announced; the second will be the Community
Energy Savings Programme and the third aspect will be the Heat
and Energy Savings Strategy going forward. So CERT and CESP will
take us through the short term and then the third consultation
will be the post-2011, medium-term policies that we are proposing
to introduce.
Q397 Dr Strang: Do you have even
a tentative view on this idea that greenhouse gas emissions should
be separated from the fuel poverty aspect?
Mr Leigh: As the Minister has
said, there was, in response to the call for evidence, considerable
support for separating out the social obligation from the energy
efficiency obligation, and the work that is being done now to
form the basis of the consultation builds on that, so there will
be a further opportunity for people to have their say before decisions
are taken about the shape of the policies going forward.
Q398 Dr Strang: Presumably you are
looking at the social impacts? For example, I must admit I have
not been too familiar with the cap-and-trade system but there
have been some suggestions that that system would not really be
popular in relation to trying to minimise fuel poverty.
Mr Leigh: Since the call for evidence
there has been a fair amount of work done to analyse the impact
of a cap-and-trade system in this area, and that will all be included
in the evidence to support the consultation proposals.
Q399 Dr Strang: You are doing your
best to see that the climate change mitigation policies do not
impact adversely on the people who are the poorest?
Joan Ruddock: Every time we propose
any new measures relevant to climate change and under the Climate
Change Act, there will always be a test: what is the impact on
fuel poverty?
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