Does the Cabinet Secretary plan to replace the current target to eradicate fuel poverty by 2018, given that, if current schemes continue at the same rate, it would take 48 years to eradicate fuel poverty in Wales?
The commitment made within in The Fuel Poverty Strategy of 2010 stated as far as reasonably practicable, fuel poverty will be eradicated in Wales in 2018. I have asked my officials to prepare a new Fuel Poverty Plan following the availability, at the end of 2018 of updated fuel poverty data. Welsh Government will also involve stakeholders in developing future actions on tackling fuel poverty in Wales.
The three key factors which influence whether a household will be in fuel poverty, and the severity of the fuel poverty are income levels, fuel prices and the energy efficiency of the home. The first two factors are outside the control of the Welsh Government and so our focus continues to be on investing significantly in domestic energy efficiency improvements. My Welsh Government Warm Homes programme which includes our fuel poverty schemes Nest and Arbed is delivering on this to thousands of low income households and households living in deprived communities. For the period 2017-2021 I am investing £104 million to help up to a further 25,000 fuel poor households receive free energy efficiency measures.
We are making progress in tackling fuel poverty with the most recent data estimating 29% of households were fuel poor in 2012 whilst in 2016 this was 23%,a reduction of 6 percentage points .The research also indicates without the impact of energy efficiency improvements, a further 80,000 households in Wales would be in fuel poverty in 2016.