Fuel poverty

The government definition of fuel poverty is the condition where households need to spend more than 10 per cent of income in order to keep warm (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, 1999b). There are varying estimates as to how many households this includes, but it is in the range 5-8 million households; the wide range is caused by the differing definitions of income in the statement above, i.e. whether it is gross income or disposable income. Each year in the winter in the UK, 30,000 more people die than would be expected given the average death rate (Figure 6.2). The majority of these are over 60 (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, 1999b: 8).