I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I, too, have enjoyed our exchanges. He spoke as if it were our last one; I certainly hope that that is not the case. Fuel poverty is an essential part of what this Government are trying to address. As he knows, we set out new regulations under the previous Government for the private-rented sector to ensure that we reach new standards in houses by 2030, 2025 and 2020. We have more ambitious targets. We have committed to making a minimum of 1 million houses more secure against fuel poverty, and I will bring forward more proposals in the autumn.

The Government is fully committed to tackling fuel poverty in England, including meeting the 2030 target now enshrined in law.

Decisions on future energy bill and energy efficiency support for consumers have not yet been taken. The Government will be guided by the fuel poverty strategy published in March 2015, which sets out a clear policy of working towards improving energy efficiency standards across the English housing stock, including in the homes of the fuel poor.

In the meantime, the Energy Company Obligation, currently in place to March 2017, will support insulation and heating measures in fuel poor homes. The Impact Assessment is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/373650/ECO_IA_with_SoS_e-sigf_v2.pdf.

This year, we are also delivering a £25m central heating fund focused on increased support for those in fuel poverty off the mains gas grid.

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is scaremongering slightly about the solid wall insulation industry. The figures he referred to are the de minimis; they are not the maximum. There are other ways in which we will be installing solid wall insulation, not least working with our cash-back. I am surprised he did not mention the cash-back, as we are now offering up to £4,000 for solid wall insulation under the roll-out of the green deal. This has been very warmly welcomed by the industry, including the National Insulation Association, so perhaps he could join us in supporting the supply chain and talking up this market, rather than acting as a little bit of an Eeyore.

The targets for the Energy Companies Obligation (ECO) are set in output terms, rather than financial terms. In terms of the elements of ECO directed at fuel poverty—Affordable Warmth (AW) and Carbon Saving Communities (CSCO—the output targets for the end of March 2015 will not change. The carbon target under CSCO will remain at 6.8MTC0₂ and the notional bill savings target for AW will stay at £4.2 billion. We expect this to translate into support for 230,000 low income households per year. Next year we will consult on setting new targets pro rata for the period 2015-17.

The average fuel poverty gap in 2011 was £438 (2011 prices).

It is not easy to isolate the impact of a given policy on levels of fuel poverty and future fuel poverty gap figures will reflect wider changes in energy prices and bills, household incomes and energy efficiency levels. However, the Energy Companies Obligation (ECO) changes we will consult on next year could be expected, on their own, to lower the average fuel poverty gap since the support directed at the fuel poor will continue and typical energy bills will be lower than they would otherwise have been.

Detailed information on spending from 2008-09 to 2012-13 on fuel poverty under Warm Front, the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target, the Community Energy Saving programme, the Warm Home Discount and the predecessor voluntary scheme has already been provided in response to written questions. For example, I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) on 1 July 2013, Official Report, column 422W.

The maximum spending obligation in 2013-14 under the Warm Home Discount, as set out in regulations, is £300 million. Requirements on energy companies under the new energy companies obligation are set in output, rather than spending, terms. In the original ECO impact assessment, we estimated average annual spending directed at fuel poverty through Affordable Warmth and Carbon Saving Communities to be £540 million for the period to 2015.

DECC have recently announced the intention to adopt the new Low Income High Costs (LIHC) indicator to measure fuel poverty in England, based on the recommendations from Professor Hills' independent review.

The number of households in fuel poverty in England is projected to remain at a similar level in 2012 before increasing marginally in 2013. The aggregate gap is projected to increase from £1 billion in 2011, to £1.2 billion in 2013. Details are provided in the following table:

DECC have recently announced the intention to adopt the new Low Income High Costs (LIHC) indicator to measure fuel poverty, based on the recommendations from Professor Hills' independent review. Under this new proposed measure, there were around 782,000 households from the private rented sector living in fuel poverty in 2011. This represents 21% of all private rented households.

As set out in the final impact assessment, available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/42984/5533-final-stage-impact-assessment-for-the-green-deal-a.pdf

it is challenging to project and quantify the impact on fuel poverty of the Green Deal and energy company obligation (ECO) policy framework. This is because of a number of uncertainties, such as which households take-up which measures and the costs of delivering measures over time. There is also inherent uncertainty around changes in the level and distribution of incomes across households, changes to the housing stock independent of the Green Deal and ECO and, of course, energy prices. Nevertheless, based on projected changes in incomes, prices and the housing stock, the measures installed under Green Deal and ECO are estimated to result in a net reduction in fuel poverty of between 125,000 to 250,000 households by the time the costs of ECO are no longer passed through to bills in 2023.¹ This figure does not reflect the aggregate benefits of this policy. In reality, ECO will deliver permanent improvements to 230,000 low income and vulnerable households per year. Indeed, in the first seven months of delivery, 167,000 measures were delivered under affordable warmth and the carbon saving communities elements of ECO combined.¹ This estimate is based on the 10% definition of fuel poverty.

The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) sets in legislation a carbon and notional bill savings target for March 2015. The obligation is expected to cost participating suppliers around £1.3 billion per annum to deliver. Our impact assessment suggests some £540 million of this, or 42% of the total budget, will be spent through the Affordable Warmth and Carbon Saving Communities Obligation programmes. These elements of ECO are targeted at low income and vulnerable households and households living in low income areas. It is likely that some low income and vulnerable households will also receive assistance under ECO's main carbon obligation.

It is not possible to develop accurate estimates of the number of fuel poor households receiving assistance under ECO overall, as specific households in fuel poverty change year on year. However, an energy efficiency scheme of this nature targeted at low income and vulnerable households can be expected to make a significant contribution to fuel poverty objectives. Delivery data shows that by the end of August, 244,882 energy efficiency and heating measures had been installed through ECO:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-energy-climate-change/series/green-deal-and-energy-company-obligation-eco-statistics

This includes more than 167,000 measures under the Affordable Warmth and Carbon Saving Communities parts of ECO.