On assuming office in March 2023, the First Minister committed to reducing fuel poverty and backed that commitment with a £10 million uplift to the Fuel Insecurity Fund, according to the Scottish Fuel Poverty Advisory Panel1.
The Panel, which advises ministers on fuel poverty, set out the sequence in a letter to Gillian Martin MSP, Minister for Energy and Environment, dated 21 December 20231. It said the First Minister made a strong commitment to reducing fuel poverty when he took office in March, quoting him directly:
"In a country as energy rich as Scotland, we should not have people living in fuel poverty."
The same letter records that the commitment was backed with a £10 million uplift to the Fuel Insecurity Fund1. The Panel did not set out in that letter how the uplift was distributed, which programmes received it, or how many households it reached; those details are not reported in the letter.
The letter was written in response to the Scottish Budget for 2024/2025. In it, the Panel said it was "extremely disappointed" to hear that the Scottish Government intends to close the Fuel Insecurity Fund and make deep cuts to the Housing and Buildings Level 3 budget line from April 20241. It said it was currently hard to see where that budget leaves the Scottish Government's statutory fuel poverty targets1.
The Panel described the fund as providing "vital support for fuel poor people, who are amongst the most vulnerable living in Scotland", and said households were facing, in real terms, energy bills this winter comparable with those of the previous winter1. It also said support through the fund provides an opportunity for households to access other longer term support1.
Why it matters for households
The Fuel Insecurity Fund is one route by which households in Scotland facing difficulty with energy costs have received support, and the Panel's letter links that support to wider help, including longer term grants and schemes that households may be able to access1. The £10 million uplift announced in March 2023 increased the money available through that route during the period it covered1.
The Panel's December letter sets the uplift against a planned closure of the fund from April 2024, which it says would create a "cliff edge" for people currently relying on the programmes the fund sponsors1. For a household, the practical effect described is a change in the support available rather than a change in the cost of energy itself. The letter does not set out what replaces the fund, if anything, or how households would be directed to other support.
The Panel's letter concerns Scotland specifically; arrangements differ across the nations of the UK1. It does not address how the uplift or the planned closure interacts with household circumstances such as tenure, heating system or home energy arrangements, and no such breakdown is reported.
What happens next
The Panel said it would reflect over the Christmas period and provide a more detailed response in the new year1. It urged the Minister to consider whether any headroom exists to provide support through a slimmed down Fuel Insecurity Fund in 2024/251. No decision by the Scottish Government on that request is reported in the letter.
Sources1 cited
- Initial response on Scottish Budget 2024-2025 - Fuel Poverty Scotland, fuelpovertypanel.scot