Commenting on the new report, 'Social Justice in the Low Carbon Transition', jointly published today by the All Party Parliamentary Fuel Poverty and Energy Efficiency Group (FPEEG) and the Associate Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group (PRASEG), Friends of the Earth's Economics Campaigner David Powell, said:


"This report is spot on - it's a scandal that ballooning energy bills and leaky buildings force millions of vulnerable people to suffer in cold, health-hazard homes.


"The Government has failed to act despite a legal commitment to end fuel poverty in the next five years and mounting medical evidence of the serious health problems cold homes cause.


"The Coalition should listen to its expert MPs and use the new Energy Bill to tackle climate change and wipe out fuel poverty - starting with rented homes, the most likely to be the worst insulated." 

ENDS

Notes to editors

1.  The report 'Social Justice in the Low Carbon Economy' is jointly published today by the Parliamentary Fuel Poverty and Energy Efficiency Group (FPEEG) and the Associate Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group (PRASEG). The report is downloadable from www.praseg.org.uk. It makes a string of recommendations to Government for a ramping up of action on energyefficiency and tackling fuel poverty, including:

a. at least £4 billion should be spent per year to meet fuel poverty and climate change targets - some of which will need to come from taxpayer-funded programmes.

b. a cross-departmental "roadmap" should be produced to set out how the Government will meet its legal duty to eradicate fuel poverty by 2016 - and it should be clarified how much this will cost and where the money will come from.

c. tackling fuel poverty in homes means taking a 'whole-house' approach, not just cherry-picking certain measures - meaning incentives such as the Feed-inTariff and Renewable Heat Incentive should be explicitly combined into acompelling package for householders.

2. The Government defines being in 'fuel poverty' as needing to spend more than 10 per cent of income on household fuel use to maintain a satisfactory heating regime.

3. For more information on what Friends of the Earth is calling for in the Energy Bill, see our briefing.