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<p>DECC have recently announced the intention to adopt the new Low Income High Costs (LIHC) indicator to measure fuel poverty, based on the recommendations from Professor Hills' independent review.</p><p>Under the LIHC indicator a household is considered fuel poor if they have above average fuel costs and were they to spend that amount on fuel, they would be left with a residual income below the official poverty line. The difference between a household's required fuel costs, and what these costs would need to be for them not to be in fuel poverty is referred to as the fuel poverty gap.</p><p>The gap for each household can be summed to produce an aggregate fuel poverty gap, which gives an understanding of the national scale of the issue.</p><p>The following table shows the number of fuel poor households in England, together with the aggregate fuel poverty gap under this new measure, from 2007 to 2011.</p><p><table><thead><tr><td valign="top" /><td valign="top">Numberof households(Thousand)<br /></td><td valign="top">Aggregatefuel poverty gap (£ million): Realterms<br /></td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td valign="top">2007<br /></td><td valign="top">2,357<br /></td><td valign="top">904<br /></td></tr><tr><td valign="top">2008<br /></td><td valign="top">2,438<br /></td><td valign="top">957<br /></td></tr><tr><td valign="top">2009<br /></td><td valign="top">2,486<br /></td><td valign="top">1,060<br /></td></tr><tr><td valign="top">2010<br /></td><td valign="top">2,474<br /></td><td valign="top">1,024<br /></td></tr><tr><td valign="top">2011<br /></td><td valign="top">2,390<br /></td><td valign="top">1,047<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>There is necessarily a time lag to allow for national survey data collection in order to produce fuel poverty statistics. As a result, at present there are no reported figures for 2011 and 2012. The Government will publish updated figures in the next Fuel Poverty National Statistics Report in 2014.</p><p>Projections of the fuel poverty gap in 2011 and 2012 are available in this year's Fuel Poverty National Statistics Report, published in August of this year.<Sup>1</Sup></p><p>No estimates of the fuel poverty gap have been made to date for each of the next five years. The Government has set out longer term projections of the fuel poverty gap in the recent strategic framework on fuel poverty—Fuel Poverty: A Framework for Future Action in July.<Sup>2</Sup><Sup>1</Sup>Availableat:</p><p>https://www.gov.uk.government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/226985/fuel_poverty_report_2013.pdf<Sup>2</Sup>Availableat:</p><p>https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fuel-poverty-a-framework-for-future-action</p> |