Response to the consultation on a new Fuel Poverty Strategy

This publication is the Mayor of London’s response to the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s consultation on a new Fuel Poverty Strategy for England – ‘Cutting the Cost of Keeping Warm’. The consultation focusses on a roadmap comprising interim milestones, which will be reflected in the new fuel poverty strategy, along with proposals on how Government will align policies better with their understanding of the problem.

This response sets out areas where the Mayor supports proposals in the consultation, as well as providing a number of recommendations to Government, including:

• recommending that the target ambition be increased to ensure that all fuel poor homes achieve an EPC band ‘C’ by 2025 and an EPC band ‘B’ by 2030
• highlighting that higher ambition needs to be coupled with increased funding from Government to ensure the proposed targets and milestones are achievable. The Mayor believes that investing in energy efficiency improvements for fuel poor homes now, will inevitably result in greater UK economy-wide savings in the future across health and social care services – effectively reducing the overall health care bill
• requesting a ‘regional indicator’ which would track the rate/nature of improvement in energy efficiency in fuel poor households in relation to geographical regions
• encouraging the creation of local advice and referral systems as an effective means to tackle fuel poverty and health issues.

The full response is available in the documents which can be downloaded from the bottom of this page.