Fuel Poverty

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what estimate his Department has made of (a) the total number of people, (b) the number of children and (c) the number of pensioners living in fuel poverty in each of the last 10 years, broken down by (i) region, (ii) local authority and (iii) constituency. (185893)

Fuel poverty numbers are calculated in terms of households rather than individuals. The most recent year for which numbers of households in fuel poverty are available is 2005. Detailed splits of fuel poverty for England in 2005, including by household composition and by region, are published in “Fuel poverty 2005: detailed tables”—available online at:

http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file42705.pdf

No split exists of fuel poverty by household composition and region (or lower geographical area), and to produce one historically would not be possible without disproportionate cost. The following table shows the total number of households, pensioner households and households with children living in fuel poverty in England in each year since 1996 for which figures have been compiled. Note that detailed splits identifying households with children and pensioners have only been produced since 2003.

*Estimated number of fuel poor households in England*
Thousand
	1996	1998	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Total households	5,100	3,400	1,700	1,400	1,200	1,200	1,500
Pensioners	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	601	584	761
Children	¹—	¹—	¹—	¹—	151	145	199
¹Not available. Note: Figures for 2006 will be published later this year.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many households in (a) private, (b) registered social landlord and (c) local authority housing were in fuel poverty in each of the last five years. (185899)

The most recent year for which numbers of households in fuel poverty are available is 2005. Splits of fuel poverty in England by type of tenure are published in "Fuel Poverty 2005: detailed tables"—available online at:

http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file42705.pdf

The following table shows the splits for number of fuel poor households in private, registered social landlord and local authority housing since 2001 in England.

*Estimated number of fuel poor households*
Thousand
	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Private (including owner occupied)	1,386	n/a	981	1,020	1,315
Local authority	273	n/a	177	152	140
Registered Social Landlord	64	n/a	64	65	75
Total	1,723	—	1,222	1,236	1,529
n/a = Not available. Note: Sums may not match total due to rounding. No detailed splits of data were produced for 2002—due to the change in the English house conditions survey cycle, headline data only was modelled.

Figures for 2006 will be available later this year and those for 2007 will be published in 2009.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many (a) pensioner households and (b) households with children were living in fuel poverty in each English region in each of the last five years. (185900)

The most recent year for which numbers of households in fuel poverty are available is 2005. Various splits of the headline fuel poverty numbers for England are published in “Fuel Poverty 2005: detailed tables”—available online at:

http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file42705.pdf

including a split by household composition and another by region. No split exists of fuel poverty by household composition and region, and to produce one historically would not be possible without disproportionate cost.

The following table shows the number of pensioner households and households with children living in fuel poverty since 2003, the first year for which estimates for pensioners and children were made.

*Estimated number of fuel poor households*
Thousand
	2003	2004	2005
Pensioners	634	604	794
Children	44	135	187
Total	778	739	981

Figures for 2006 will be available later this year.

Volume 472: debated on Wednesday 20 February 2008