What is "fuel poverty" ?

John_Pierpoint

It seems that today's fuss is about "fuel poverty"?

It seems that fuel poverty is a home energy bill > 10% of disposable income.

This is beginning to sound as nebulous as "child poverty".

What is "disposable income" ?

HappyMJ

Disposable income as far as fuel poverty is concerned is the money left over after tax and national insurance has been deducted from your pay.

Kennyboy66

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

It seems that today's fuss is about "fuel poverty"?

It seems that fuel poverty is a home energy bill > 10% of disposable income.

This is beginning to sound as nebulous as "child poverty".

What is "disposable income" ?

For a start, its not disposable income but after tax income.
After tax income a fairly straight forward base point.

Hardly nebulous when OAP's die from not being able to heat their home properly during a cold snap.

roddydogs

Its something that BBC Breakfast time drags up every few months to prove how nasty the government is.

abaxas

Fuel poverty is when people cant heat rooms they dont use.

Generali

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

Hardly nebulous when OAP's die from not being able to heat their home properly during a cold snap.

I'm not sure if this is still the case but ISTR that OAPs not being able to afford to heat their homes was generally due to them not claiming their pension.

movilogo

Fuel poverty = not enough money (after mortgage, food, clothes etc.) to turn on heating at home.

Generali

movilogo wrote: »

Fuel poverty = not enough money (after mortgage, food, clothes etc.) to turn on heating at home.

I'm pretty sure that isn't the definition. Perhaps it should be.

somethingcorporate

Disposable income is not the same as net (after tax) income (or shouldn't be) as if it has to be spent on things like mortgage and food etc it is hardly disposable.

Kennyboy66

Generali wrote: »

I'm not sure if this is still the case but ISTR that OAPs not being able to afford to heat their homes was generally due to them not claiming their pension.

I presume you mean claiming various benefits (pension credit being the main one) that they may be entitled to rather than pension - and this is true.

It is also due to them living in damp, poorly insulated homes, having expensive heating (elec. rather than gas) and being naturally frugal.

Its complex and hard to address (without poorly targeted expensive, universal benefits) but to suggest as the OP does that it is nebulous or doesn't exist is delusional.

missprice

It does exist I have been a survivor
lived in an all elec house for 4 years with awful underfloor heating that took three days to warm up a room.
and that was all it warmed up the rest of the house was freezing.
it had concrete walls that dripped water downstairs and wonderful windows that were next to useless. condensation froze on the inside

The choices to make were between cooking a meal from scratch which is supposed to be better for you and cheaper (Ha) or buying a more expensive microwave meal and only using the microwave for maybe 10 mins.
and to put the heating on or just not bother as it made little difference.
one year as it was so cold we all (me and 2 little kids) lived only downstairs in the one heated room.

and for that I got a elec bill of £40 a week, and that was 16 years ago