Beating fuel poverty

As Tim Montgomerie has noted, a growing priority for voters is the astronomical cost of petrol. In fact, according to a Populous poll conducted outside the Westminster bubble, people are far more concerned about energy prices than almost any other issue, even public sector spending cuts.

With prices hitting 150p per litre at some garages, many fear that petrol and diesel is becoming part of the poverty trap. For example, in my constituency of Harlow, figures show that the average motorist is now paying something like £1,700 a year just to fill up the family car. This is a tenth of the average income in our town. Experts have ruled that spending a tenth of your income to keep warm is classed as fuel poverty. But what about paying a tenth of your income just to drive to work? If you can’t drive to work, how can you get off benefits and into a job? Unless we act now, energy and transport costs could become a roadblock to the Work Programme and the economy in general.