The Long Cold Winter: Beating fuel poverty

More and more people are being plunged into fuel poverty as energy prices rise and government programmes to tackle this major social problem fail to keep up with the scale of the challenge.

This report reviews the current policy landscape on fuel poverty and asks where policy should go next, if fuel poverty is to be addressed effectively in the UK.

The current fuel poverty strategy was devised at a time when energy prices were falling but the context has now changed significantly - energy prices are projected to rise and new technological developments could offer fresh options for tackling fuel poverty. We therefore make a number of recommendations for a radical rethink of the fuel poverty strategy.