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Energy Supply

Volume 457: debated on Wednesday 7 March 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what estimate he has made of the number and proportion of households in each region and nation of the UK which do not have mains access to (a) gas and (b) electricity. (125181)

As part of its regional and local energy statistics publication programme, DTI has published on its website the number of domestic gas meter points in each Government office area in England, together with Scotland and Wales1. When these are compared with the latest estimates of the number of households in these areas, the following numbers and percentages are derived2.

1 www.dti.gov.uk/energy/statistics/regional/quality/page36160 .html

2 This analysis may overstate the number of households having mains access to gas because households in multi-occupancy of a property may share a gas meter. “Domestic” is defined as consumers of less than 73,200 kWh per year and will include small commercial and industrial businesses. Household estimates are those published in March 2006 for England, June 2005 for Scotland, and 2003 for Wales and are less up to date than the gas and meter statistics.

Difference between number of households and number of gas meter points

Gas meter points as a percentage of the number of households

England

2,700,000

87.4

North East

70,000

93.7

North West

190,000

93.6

Yorkshire and the Humber

160,000

92.4

East Midlands

220,000

88.0

West Midlands

260,000

88.5

East

470,000

80.1

London

290,000

90.9

South East

480,000

86.0

South West

560,000

74.4

Wales

170,000

85.9

Scotland

500,000

77.7

Great Britain

3,380,000

86.5

Corresponding data are not available for Northern Ireland.

A similar regional analysis based on electricity meter points is not possible because, where electricity is supplied through two-rate and three-rate meters (mainly those meters using dynamic teleswitching), there are two meter recordings per address. It is estimated that there are some 1,060,000 domestic customers with two meter point numbers in Great Britain. For Great Britain as a whole, it is estimated that 99.6 per cent. of households have mains access to electricity so fewer than 100,000 households do not. As with gas, some households may share an electricity meter.

Where a household owns more than one property, the statistics take account of meters in all properties.