Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | APRIL 2023 | 9 Interview W hen Caroline Flint was unveiled just over a year ago as the surprise new chair of the govern- ment's Committee on Fuel Poverty (CfP), the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was still germinating in Vladimir Putin's mind. Within a month of the former Labour minister's appointment to become only the second head of the fuel poverty watchdog, the energy world had been upended as Europe's main supplier of gas transformed into the major threat to peace and security across the continent. Fuel poverty was already rising up the agenda on the back of the post-pandemic spike in gas prices. However concerns about energy costs have rocketed during Flint's first year as chair, resulting in a series of government interventions that have so far cost the public purse tens of billions of pounds. Since taking the helm of the CfP, which was set up under the coalition government to monitor progress on tackling the scourge of fuel poverty, she has heard some grim stories. They include people only heating a single room, cooking in one pot or not even eating hot food at all because they are afraid of turning on the microwave or a cooker. Flint says: "People are having to cut back in a way that you just wouldn't imagine. People have literally tried everything they can to reduce their energy. Even then with some of those people, despite everything they are doing, the unit cost of energy is still so high it is just not making a dent." The committee's annual fuel poverty statistical update, which was published in March, puts some hard figures on these tales of human woe. The grim but sadly unsurprising headline reading was that the CfP believes this year will see the first rise in the fuel poverty rate in the 13 years since the body was established. And the proportion of fuel-poor house- holds in England is predicted to increase from 13.4% to 14.4% this year. Perhaps most shocking, though, is the increase in the projected average fuel poverty gap in England, which measures the reduction in fuel costs that households would need in order not to be fuel poor. This figure is projected to be £443 per annum this year, which is 31% higher than the projection of £338 for 2022 and 73% higher than 2021's actual out-turn figure of £254. Despite acknowledging what she describes as the "incredible amount of money" the government has put into subsidising energy bills over the past year, Flint says: "That just gives you a really stark idea about where continued overleaf

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