What is "fuel poverty" ?

antrobus

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" ?

We consider a household to be in fuel poverty if it needs to spend more than 10 percent of its income on fuel for adequate heating (usually 21 degrees for the main living area, and 18 degrees for other occupied rooms).

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/funding/fuel_poverty/fuel_poverty.aspx

But as far as I'm aware there is no substantive reason why it should be 10%, rather than 8% or 13.26%.

Jennifer_Jane

antrobus wrote: »

We consider a household to be in fuel poverty if it needs to spend more than 10 percent of its income on fuel for adequate heating (usually 21 degrees for the main living area, and 18 degrees for other occupied rooms).

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/funding/fuel_poverty/fuel_poverty.aspx

But as far as I'm aware there is no substantive reason why it should be 10%, rather than 8% or 13.26%.

21 degrees all day? That's pretty warm. I'm sitting here in a room that is currently 20 degrees and that will cool down as I have upstairs windows open for a bit. I lived in Africa for 26 years and feel the cold badly, but I feel warm. I understand that people even older than myself and with painful medical conditions need it warmer, but 21 degrees is quite warm (and all day/evening?) and should not really be the standard for "fuel poverty".

PS - not challenging you, antrobus, just rather amazed at the definition.

HappyMJ

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

21 degrees all day? That's pretty warm. I'm sitting here in a room that is currently 20 degrees and that will cool down as I have upstairs windows open for a bit. I lived in Africa for 26 years and feel the cold badly, but I feel warm. I understand that people even older than myself and with painful medical conditions need it warmer, but 21 degrees is quite warm (and all day/evening?) and should not really be the standard for "fuel poverty".

PS - not challenging you, antrobus, just rather amazed at the definition.

I'm happy when the room temperature is about 18 as well but I imagine older people feel the cold more and 21 would be more suitable for them and as they are at home all day then it would be quite expensive.

thriftylass

antrobus wrote: »

We consider a household to be in fuel poverty if it needs to spend more than 10 percent of its income on fuel for adequate heating (usually 21 degrees for the main living area, and 18 degrees for other occupied rooms).

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/funding/fuel_poverty/fuel_poverty.aspx

But as far as I'm aware there is no substantive reason why it should be 10%, rather than 8% or 13.26%.

I think that would include most people then, I couldn't afford to have the main area on 21 and the rest on 18 and we earn 3k a month together. So we just have the main area on 18 and the rest off

HappyMJ

thriftylass wrote: »

I think that would include most people then, I couldn't afford to have the main area on 21 and the rest on 18 and we earn 3k a month together.

More than £300 a month on heating? £3,600 a year plus your normal electricity and gas charges for hot water and cooking...That's a huge bill what do you live in a mansion.

Jennifer_Jane

HappyMJ wrote: »

I'm happy when the room temperature is about 18 as well but I imagine older people feel the cold more and 21 would be more suitable for them and as they are at home all day then it would be quite expensive.

I'm home all day and just coming up to 66 - as I said, I understand that people who are much older and cannot move as much as I can, or have medical conditions will feel the cold more. But should they be the norm for the definition of "fuel poverty". Surely they are the exception, especially since the term must cover the whole population, rather than a comparatively few members of the populace?

To me 21 degrees is rather too warm, and the definition of "fuel poverty" should surely be 17 degrees or so?

21 degrees all day and 18 degrees at night would certainly put me into "Fuel Poverty" too.

roswell

Fuel poverty definatly isnt a number on the thermostate, some places hold heat better then others in which case 21 could be the norm for a well insulated house where a drafty house will struggle to keep outside temp +3 degrees.

define poverty, if you have £10 in your back pocket your probably richer then 90% of the world.

Fuel poverty in my mind is failure to live your lifestyle correctly.

The UK only has a very small number of truely POOR people and those are more then likely through choice.

Percy1983

The ideas of poverty in this country are a bit wrong.

Fuel poverty = having a bit less to spend on fags, sky TV and iPhones.

Child poverty - child not having an xbox 360 or PS3 to play on.

grizzly1911

Apply the measure too income is too simplistic. Individual circumstances are just that. A rich person may live in a small flat, a poor person might live in a drafty old council house as much as vice versa.

Someone may be on the best fixed rate another may be struggling on premium pr payment.

More and more people are struggling to maintain adequate warmth,that is not rocket science, it is fact. Despite more and more properties being insulated the escalating fuel prices are simply outstripping income increases. That is particularly true for the poorer in society, where fuel is a much bigger percentage of income.

Yes many can alter their expenditure and give up some "luxuries" first, to maintain warmth but ultimately their standard, whoever that may be,of living is eroding ever more quickly as a direct result of onerous fuel price increases.

John_Pierpoint

antrobus wrote: »

We consider a household to be in fuel poverty if it needs to spend more than 10 percent of its [disposable] income on fuel for adequate heating (usually 21 degrees for the main living area, and 18 degrees for other occupied rooms).

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/funding/fuel_poverty/fuel_poverty.aspx

But as far as I'm aware there is no substantive reason why it should be 10%, rather than 8% or 13.26%.

So to sum up, none of us are quite sure, of the definition of disposable income.

I asked the question in part because last night, while doing the washing up, I was listening to a phone in from people with debt problems.
The advisor, trying to see off an aggressive card company said "Let us decide on your disposable income" - and proceeded to tease out figures for a lot of deductions and "necessities" before arriving at a pretty miserable "disposable income". So that the card company could be offered a few quid per month.

I am pretty sure that disposable income is a whole lot less than after tax income?

However in an inflationary environment no government is going to accept "the income left over after allowing for taxation by inflation that is impoverishing me" or "the income left after current cost accounting depreciation of my real assets".
Both of these measures need to be taken into account to decide if the real wealth of an individual or a nation is declining.

If persons can really claim to be in fuel poverty when living at a density of less than one person per heated habitable room room is a moot point. Perhaps only those living in flats should be able to claim fuel poverty?
The rest could downsize to something smaller, more efficiently heated and better insulated ?