Fuel poverty in the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom fuel poverty is said to occur when, in order to heat its home to an adequate standard of warmth, a household needs to spend more than 10% of its income on total fuel use. Adequate warmth is generally defined to be 21 °C in the main living room and 18 °C in other occupied rooms during daytime hours, with lower temperatures at night, following the recommendations of the World Health Organization. Fuel poverty is not just about access to heating as the definition of fuel is taken to include all expenditure on domestic energy, including that used for hot water, cooling, lights and appliances. This definition is essentially that first established by Dr Brenda Boardman in her book entitled Fuel Poverty, first published in 1991.

There are, however, a variety of different ways of considering household income when measuring fuel poverty. The UK definition does not, for example, take account of the amount that a household actually spends on fuel, nor the amount available for the household to spend on fuel after other costs have been met.

The UK Government’s preferred definition of household income includes income from housing-related benefits in the calculation of household income. Other estimates of the extent of fuel poverty exclude benefits from household income. The charity National Energy Action (NEA) regards both these definitions as unacceptable and believes that disposable income (after the deduction of housing costs) should be used in the definition of fuel poverty.

On 14 March 2011, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change announced he had asked Professor John Hills of the London School of Economics to lead a review of the fuel poverty definition and target. The interim report of this independent review was published on 19 October 2011. On page 19 of the interim report, Hill suggests redefining a fuel poor household as one that has required fuel costs that are above the median level, and were they to spend that amount, would be left with a residual income below the official poverty line. No official action has yet been taken on this suggestion.

In early 2008 it was estimated by Energywatch that there were around 4.4 million households in fuel poverty in the UK, with just over 3 million in England alone. This was more than double the number in 2003.

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