Fuel Poverty
Reducing occurrence of fuel poverty (defined as households paying over ten percent of income for heating costs) is one of the four basic goals of UK energy policy. In the prior decade substantial progress has been made on this goal, but primarily due to government subsidies to the poor rather than through fundamental change of home design or improved energy pricing. The following national programs have been specifically instrumental in such progress: Winter Fuel Payment, Child Tax Credit and Pension Credit. Some benefits have resulted from the Warm Front Scheme in England, the Central Heating Programme in Scotland and the Home Energy Efficiency Scheme in Wales. These latter programs provide economic incentives for physical improvement in insulation, etc.
Read more about this topic: Energy Policy Of The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the words fuel and/or poverty:
“I had an old axe which nobody claimed, with which by spells in winter days, on the sunny side of the house, I played about the stumps which I had got out of my bean-field. As my driver prophesied when I was plowing, they warmed me twice,—once while I was splitting them, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could give out more heat. As for the axe,... if it was dull, it was at least hung true.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Public money is like holy water; everyone helps himself to it.”
—Italian proverb, pt. 5, epigraph, Graham Hancock, Lords of Poverty (1989)