Adding to existing worries about the cost of living, the implications of the latest report from the Institute of Health Equity are deeply alarming. Its author, Prof Michael Marmot, spells out the links between rising fuel poverty and various forms of illness, and warns that the threat is greatest for those who are already least well-off. By January next year, 55% of UK households, or 15 million, are expected to be fuel-poor (though a change in the way this is officially defined in England, and differences with Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, make comparisons difficult).
Warnings of surging demand at food banks, and a backdrop of acute concern about the growing gap between incomes and prices, make the picture drawn by the report all the bleaker. It predicts worsening respiratory and mental health for children in affected homes, and highlights the increased circulation of viruses and infections, including bronchiolitis, associated with colder temperatures. The contribution of damp and mould to asthma is also pointed out. So are links between poverty, cold, poor housing and mental illness.
The risks are not limited to babies and children, although the existence of a window of opportunity in childhood for optimal maturation of the lungs makes the impact on them particularly severe. Respiratory illnesses and asthma affect adults too, and circulatory problems can be worsened by cold. The existing correlation between fuel poverty and other forms of deprivation is also expected to be magnified, since poorer families will be hardest hit by price rises. Another new report, from the Resolution Foundation thinktank, has described the expected fall in living standards as more extreme than that suffered during the second world war, while analysis by the International Monetary Fund shows that the impact of the energy crisis is being felt more unequally in the UK than in any other western European country.
These findings reveal gross errors of judgment by the current government and previous ones. Policy failures dating back years include the structure of the UK’s energy market, correctly described by Prof Marmot as “crazy”, and a strategically and environmentally destructive overreliance on gas. Meanwhile, the fact that the UK has the least energy-efficient homes in western Europe should be recognised for the scandal that it is. Along with more recent mistakes, such as the botched outsourcing of a 2020 green homes scheme, David Cameron’s decision to scrap tougher environmental standards for new homes that were due to be introduced in 2016, and the failure to support renewables, stand out.
It only remains to be seen how quickly the next prime minister will act, and what form action will take. The favourite to win the Tory leadership race, Liz Truss, has retracted her earlier dismissal of “handouts” and promised a package of support along with tax cuts. Some combination of energy bill caps and payments to those in need will be a first step. But the looming crisis, whose extent and extremity in some vulnerable areas threatens to overwhelm existing services, is more than a price shock. It is an indictment of the party that has governed Britain for the past 12 years, and particularly its failures on housing (the worst energy performance is in the private rental sector, taking into account housing type), benefits (lone-parent households are at highest risk of fuel poverty) and productivity.
The tactic of road blockages adopted by last year’s Insulate Britain campaign was arguably misguided, but the prescription was correct. The UK’s old and leaky housing stock needs an upgrade, and has done for years. That millions of UK households now face an even more difficult winter than will be experienced elsewhere is down to years of poor government.
