It's official, more than a fifth of all households in the UK were affected by fuel poverty in 2009, so says the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Repeated increase in fuel bills mean that the number of homes affected rose by one million, or 22%, to 5.5 million. The government defines fuel poverty as being when a household is has to spend more than 10% of its income keeping warm.
DECC noted that "between 2004 and 2009, energy prices increased: domestic electricity prices increased by over 75%, while gas prices increased by over 122% over the same period" and this led to the rise in fuel poverty. They (DECC) also predict that the numbers for 2010 and 2011 will have increased because of further rises in the price of energy.
Apparently the answer is more competition and the free market... Hmm...isn't that what we have all been living with (and paying for) over the last twenty plus years. An unregulated 'free market' or more accurately an largely unregulated privatised effective monopoly has clearly not worked. Surely to continue to repeat the mistakes of the past is a bad idea to say the least...or is HMG too busy thinking about windfall taxes on excessive profits...
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