The End Fuel Poverty Coalition has published estimates that 16.4 million people in 6.9 million UK households will still be in fuel poverty in winter 2022/23, based on multiple media reports of a price freeze on energy bills at GBP2,500 from 1 October 2022, falling to GBP2,100 with the GBP400 promised support1. Around 5.3 million of those households will be in England1. The coalition is part of the Warm This Winter campaign, which launched on 26 August in response to the growing energy bills crisis1.
The figures compare with the coalition's earlier estimates, based on levels of support pledged up to 5 September 2022, that 21 million people in around 9 million homes (32 per cent) would be in fuel poverty from 1 October, rising to around 28 million people in 12 million UK households (42 per cent) from January 2023 unless urgent action was taken by the Government1. The coalition says millions more are also set to suffer on the more general measures of fuel poverty and fuel stress used by some academics and campaigners1.
The coalition's regional analysis, based on 23 of 32,844 lower layer super output areas, found that over twenty neighbourhoods in Birmingham, Bradford, Coventry, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Stoke and Wolverhampton could see fuel poverty rates above 75 per cent of households from 1 October 2022, with some close to every household in the area1. Over 400 (411) neighbourhoods will see fuel poverty at levels exceeding 55 per cent of households1. At local authority level, the areas worst affected are Barnsley, Birmingham, Coventry, Hull, Leicester, Manchester, Nottingham, Norwich, Sandwell, Stoke-on-Trent and Wolverhampton, with the whole of West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire, plus Liverpool, Newcastle-under-Lyme, North East Lincolnshire, Scarborough and the London boroughs of Newham and Barking and Dagenham, also hit hard under a GBP2,500 price cap1. Regional data for England is based on LSOA level calculations or local authority and metropolitan authority level1.
A spokesperson for the End Fuel Poverty Coalition said:
"The Government's plans focus on offering welcome universal support through a price freeze, but we also need additional help for the millions of households in fuel poverty who are already struggling."
The coalition's estimates rest on media reports of the freeze rather than a confirmed policy announcement, and the briefing notes that the methodology page is being updated with the latest figures while the assumptions and definitions remain1. The Warm This Winter campaign's demands of government are emergency financial support this winter, a funded programme of home upgrades and insulation, more than tripling renewable energy in the UK by 2030, and stopping the opening of new oil and gas fields1. Separate modelling by Tax Justice UK found that a 95 per cent excess profits tax on North Sea oil and gas companies could raise up to GBP44 billion a year for two years1.
Why it matters for households
The estimates indicate that a freeze at GBP2,500, or GBP2,100 with the GBP400 support, would leave millions of households above the thresholds used in official fuel poverty statistics, and that the definitions differ between the nations. For a household, the practical effect of a freeze is a ceiling on the unit rates and standing charges of a default tariff rather than a cap on the total bill, so a home that uses more energy still pays more, and the level of the cap determines how far that ceiling sits above what a household can afford. The coalition's neighbourhood-level figures suggest the pressure is concentrated in particular areas and property types, which bears on energy bills and energy independence at the level of a single home: the gap between what a dwelling needs to stay warm and what its occupants can pay is what the estimates measure. Households on prepayment meters and standard credit face different costs under the same cap, and vulnerable and medically dependent households carry needs that a price ceiling does not address.
What happens next
The Fuel Poverty Action petition for Energy For All, which had been signed by 557,000 people, was to be delivered to the new Prime Minister on 19 September1. The Warm This Winter petition had been signed by 120,000 people since it was launched the previous weekend1. The coalition says the figures were set to grow to around 28 million people in 12 million UK households (42 per cent) from January 2023 unless urgent action was taken by the Government1. No confirmed government decision on the reported freeze is set out in the coalition's statement.