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National Right to Fuel Campaign issues challenge to Government on private rented sector
SE2 has been involved with efforts to improve energy efficiency in the private rented sector over a number of years. It remains one of the biggest challenges for energy efficiency. How do we persuade landlords to improve their properties when it is tenants that will benefit from the energy savings? How do we encourage change when there is so much demand for rented property that quality can in part be ignored? There have been steps over recent years - from financial incentives linking landlord and tenant (particularly Green Deal), fiscal incentives (the Landlords Energy Saving Allowance, now defunct), information from Energy Performance Certificates, the introduction of a tenant's right to ask for improvements and the creation of minimum energy efficiency standards for the sector. Sounds like a good mix - so what's the problem?
The National Right to Fuel Campaign, a consortium of fuel poverty campaigners, is looking specifically at the issue of fuel poverty in privately rented properties, and recently issued the following as a press release. If you would like to find out more about NRFC's work, please visit http://right2fueluk.com/ or follow them on Twitter: @Right2FuelUK.
Landlords leaving tenants out in the cold
The National Right to Fuel Campaign, a consortium of Fuel Poverty campaigners, is calling on the Government to acknowledge that it is missing its own fuel poverty targets and redouble efforts to protect ordinary people from greedy landlords.
- 1 in 4 low-income households renting from a private landlord is unable to afford their energy bill
- Nearly half a million households being made to suffer by Landlords with Victorian standards of living
- Fuel Poverty campaigners call for Theresa May to give back control to low-income renters
With more than 25,000 avoidable deaths a year caused by Fuel Poverty and an NHS bill of nearly £2billion, cold and damp homes are having a disastrous affect on the UK. The problem is particularly acute for the half a million householders living in rental accommodation rated as F or G standard, with 115,000 of these households already in fuel poverty. These properties are on average nearly £1,000 more expensive to power and heat a year which means that landlords are literally leaving their renters out in the cold.
The Government's 2015 Fuel Poverty Strategy recognised the problem and promised to upgrade all F and G rated homes by 2020. Yet recent research shows that in the last 12 months since the Government's strategy kicked off, only a few thousand homes have been upgraded by landlords. On this current trajectory the Government will drastically miss its own targets - 115,000 rented homes upgraded by 2020 and nearer to 0.5million by 2030 - leaving many campaigners with the strong impression that the Government is trying to hide this issue from Parliament and the press.
"In March 2015, in the Fuel Poverty Strategy, the Government committed to holding a debate in Parliament every 12 months on fuel poverty. That has not happened in 2016. The results have been hugely disappointing to date - reaching a standard of E for all homes by 2020 should be our minimum ambition," said Dr Brenda Boardman, a member of the National Right to Fuel Campaign and Oxford University’s pre-eminent authority on fuel poverty.
The Government's progress has been hampered by changes to its Green Deal scheme - a financing mechanism which was meant to create a new mass market for household energy efficiency upgrades. This failure, together with cuts, since 2012, to government grants for less well-off households, means that 100,000 low-income renters are now reliant on the Government pushing through its commitment to force all landlords to a minimum E standard from 2018.
However, the recent merger of two Government departments to align energy policy with business regulation and ongoing cuts to Local Authorities have created concern that the new regulations will remain largely unenforced in most areas.
John Kolm-Murray and his team at Islington Council have a lot of experience working with Landlords, "We welcome the Government's commitment to ban landlords who try to rent out low performing properties. The majority of landlords do the right thing, but we find that the 30% who don't are just trying to make a quick buck from desperate tenants. These people are often students, the elderly or low-income families and they need help from local authorities to enforce these regulations, resources which most of us don't have following recent cuts".
These concerns are shared by the property industry and the Association of Residential Letting Agents have confirmed to the National Right to Fuel Campaign that they are keen to see all UK landlords providing energy efficient housing.
Over the coming weeks, the National Right to Fuel Campaign will be asking a series of questions through its parliamentary group, holding the Government to account on its fuel poverty commitments - an annual progress report; a debate in Parliament on how it will get back on track to meet its targets; and confirmation on the detail of the new regulations for landlords that will go ahead in 2018.
Simon Roberts, CEO of the Centre for Sustainable Energy, sums it up in the following way: "June's referendum vote demonstrated the need for government - national and local - to do more to help our most disadvantaged and ‘left-behind’ communities. Since 2010, our work with the health sector, with local councils and with community groups to improve the lives of people living on low-incomes in cold and damp homes has been undermined enormously by poor government policy. It is critical that the government gets it right now".
The battle lines are drawn in the fight to protect disadvantaged communities from fuel poverty. In November, the National Right to Fuel Campaign will be hosting a Westminster debate led by former Chair, Paul Lewis, to raise awareness of these issues.
What do you think? How can we protect the interests of low-income tenants at risk of fuel poverty? Share your views with SE2 and NRFC on Twitter: @se2limited and @Right2FuelUK.