In October there will be another round of fuel price increase, which could see annual household energy bills climb above £2000. That will plunge a further 2.2 million households into fuel poverty. See below.
Moreover, the fuel poverty gap which was £223 in 2020 will be much larger when official figures for 2022 are finally released.
A result, the CEO of energy supplier E.on forecasts nearly 40% of UK households will be in fuel poverty in 2023, if nothing is done to help households with their energy costs.
Household are in fuel poverty when a number of elements come together.
This is exactly the case at the moment. According to End Fuel Poverty Coalition, nearly half of low-income households are still living in energy inefficient homes. Add to that increases in fuel prices are likely to hit those on low incomes hardest because fuel costs take up such a significant percentage of their disposable income.
Recent research from the Jacob Rowntree Foundation found that, energy bills would amount to:
Added to that, older households in the lowest income decile will see energy costs rise to 18% from April 2022. (Age Concern)
1. It’s a simple question. Is there a pattern to fuel poverty, and is it a regional pattern? At first glance the answer would appear to be yes. See below:
Region (England only) | % neighbourhoods in fuel poverty |
West Midlands | 41 |
Yorkshire and Humber | 35 |
North East | 26 |
London | 25 |
North West | 24 |
East Midlands | 20 |
East of England | 15 |
South West | 4 |
South East | 1 |
Areas most affected by fuel poverty are by and large the old industrial regions, and other areas in need of “levelling up”, While the South East, the South West and to some extent East Anglia fare much better, with the exception of London. More on that later.
2. Drilling down to local authority level (see table below) the regional pattern shown above, repeats itself up to a point. But the pattern is becoming more nuanced. It becomes clear that some local authorities (LAs) are particularly badly affected:
a) London stands out with three LAs in the worst 5.
b) The West Midlands account for around one third of the worst performing Las.
c) Plus, there are representatives from Yorkshire and Humberside, The East Midlands and the North West.
d) However, notice that Kings Lynn and West Norfolk (a rural area) also features in the table.
Local Authority | Region | % of neighbourhoods in fuel poverty |
Newham | London | 73 |
Stoke on Trent | West Midlands | 69 |
Barking and Dagenham | London | 68 |
Wolverhampton | West Midlands | 65 |
Waltham Forest | London | 64 |
Sandwell | West Midlands | 61 |
Manchester | North West | 59 |
Birmingham | West Midlands | 59 |
Hull | Yorks and Humber | 53 |
Leicester | East Midlands | 53 |
Walsall | West Midlands | 53 |
Haringey | London | 50 |
Norwich | East of England | 49 |
Kings Lynn | East of England | 48 |
Barnsley | Yorks and Humber | 47 |
Nottingham | East Midlands | 47 |
What the majority of these LAs have in common is that they are part of city regions. And it is these areas typically where you find most of the communities deemed “left behind” by the government.
3. Friends of the Earth have produced an excellent interactive map detailing the pattern of fuel poverty across England which can be accessed here: https://mapst.ac/foe/fuel-poverty#6.17/53/-2.75.
What this shows is that the pattern of fuel poverty has more of a patchwork quality about it, not dissimilar in many respects to patterns of multiple deprivation across the UK.
a) In the old industrial heartlands.
b) In rural areas.
c) In and around our major cities.
So, it looks like there are identifiable patterns. What then, are the factors which might be helping to create these patterns?
a) Fuel poverty and multiple deprivation. The link between the two would seem to be obvious. Low income and fuel poverty are linked. Low income is a component of deprivation. So logically there should be a (strong) correlation between fuel poverty and the index of multiple deprivation.
Surprisingly perhaps very little research seems to have been carried out in this field, so evidence is sparse. However, a research paper published by the University of Sheffield in 2019, throws some light on the relationship. Using a series of correlation coefficients, it finds that correlation between fuel poverty and multiple deprivation varies across the regions of England:
There are clearly other factors at play. Using government data, Friends of the Earth have produced a report which highlights the following:
In addition:
Young people are highly unlikely to qualify for renting social housing. They are more likely to be in private rented accommodation, particularly in major cities like London, because for many home ownership is unaffordable. This may explain the high percentage of young people in fuel poverty, as a result of the inadequate or fuel inefficient properties they occupy. This despite their relatively high incomes, because their income is offset by high rental costs.
At the same time the stock of social housing is much less than it was. Public housing owned and managed by local authorities, (council housing) reached a post war peak of 32% of the UK housing stock. By 2018 this had dropped to 8%, with the huge loss of 4.5 million council homes since 1979 (The Meteor).
As a result, low-income households are also forced into privately rented accommodation much of which, as we have seen, is fuel inefficient.
The answer would seem to be either:
a) The poorest are hit hardest by fuel cost increases. Spending on energy varies less by income than any other spending category. This means lower income households have to spend a much larger share of their family budgets on energy than higher income groups. So, increases in energy prices will have a greater impact on lower income households. Recent and expected price rises in 2022 suggest that it would cost the poorest 20% of households an additional £850-950 to use as much energy in 2022-23 as they did in 2019-20.
b) Fuel poverty has a negative impact on our health.
By Phil Brighty
Former Geography Teacher
