To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many households in (a) rural and (b) non-rural areas were classified as being in fuel poverty in each year since 1997; and what each figure represents per 1,000 total households. (85941)

The numbers of urban, suburban and rural households in fuel poverty in England are presented for all available years since 1996 using the current fuel poverty methodology. The analyses for the years 2003 and 2004 have been done using the respective combined years’ datasets of the English House Condition Survey.

Note that all figures are quoted to the nearest 100,000 households. Because of rounding, totals may not sum to the official fuel poverty statistics. Small inter-year variations may also be due to rounding and may not be statistically significant.