Fuel Poverty

Philip Davies
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what recent assessment he has made of the likely effect of the application of the provisions of the Climate Change Act 2008 on levels of fuel poverty.

Joan Ruddock
The Government are committed to tackling fuel poverty, and have spent £20 billion on fuel poverty benefits and programmes since 2000. The fuel poverty implications of the Climate Change Act will depend on the specific policies to deliver the carbon budgets and to mitigate fuel poverty. In the summer, the Government will lay a report before Parliament on a package of policies and proposals for meeting the first three carbon budgets, as part of an Energy and Climate Change Strategy. This will include an assessment of the overall impact of the package on fuel poverty. An initial estimate of the possible impact was contained in the first report of the Committee on Climate Change, published on 1 December 2008, and the Government's Impact Assessment of the EU Climate and Energy Package and proposed carbon budget levels, published on 22 April 2009.