Industry News

UK's fuel-poor rate falls

The number of households in fuel poverty declined between 2009 and 2010 to 4.75 million, figures from the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) show.

Within England, this figure has dropped from four million in 2009 to 3.5 million in 2010.

Fuel poverty is classified as any householder that pays more than ten per cent of their income on energy bills.

DECC attributed the decline to rising incomes, improvements in home energy efficiency and little change in energy prices.

However, with the price of energy rising over the past 12 months, the department predicted that the number of fuel poor households will have remained the same in 2011 and will even rise to 3.9 million by the end of this year.

Energy minister Greg Barker reminded vulnerable households to take advantage of government schemes including the Warm Front and Warm Home Discount, as well as the Green Deal.

"Fuel poverty remains a serious national problem and the Coalition is absolutely committed to tackling it," he said.

Work is being done to make green home improvements in the lowest income households. As of 2010, 32 per cent of properties had energy efficient boilers, compared to 24 per cent in 2009.

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For more information please see: Fuel poverty statistics