I have one specific response on the wisdom of fuel poverty targets. In our submission, we say that it would be helpful to continue to measure extreme fuel poverty. At the moment, there is basic fuel poverty which, under the old definition, is having to spend 10 per cent of income to keep your home warm, as you know. Extreme fuel poverty is having to spend twice that or more. In our submission, we ask that extreme fuel poverty should continue to be measured, because it will provide a guide to what is going on in the elimination of the worst forms of fuel poverty. We say very firmly that extreme fuel poverty is intolerable in a civilised society and that it should be eradicated as quickly as possible—within five years.
As for the main target on fuel poverty, we completely take the point that not all the drivers are within the powers of the Scottish Government. Nevertheless, we think that it should be possible to reduce the level to about 5 per cent. You are always going to have people popping in and out of fuel poverty, no matter where you get to, so 5 per cent is not an unreasonable figure for basic fuel poverty.
10:15
To go back to the main drivers of fuel poverty, I imagine that we will discuss in more detail the question that we have raised in the rural and remote rural context about the level of disposable income and why the definition of fuel poverty needs to reflect that properly through the minimum income standard, which we support. A driver of fuel poverty is the lack of trusted local support in some areas, particularly remote rural areas. It is quite revealing to look at the map that the Scottish Government produced of the home energy efficiency programmes for Scotland area-based schemes—HEEPS ABS—successes and otherwise for 2015-16, for example. That shows some surprising gaps in areas where we would have expected there to have been high activity.
To say that there is a lack of trusted local support does not mean that the support is not excellent where it exists or that there are not good, helpful national services. However, what works best in solving the problems in remote rural areas is having people available to go into the homes of people who would not otherwise think that they deserved any help at all, such as the old lady who lives in a croft house at the end of a lane somewhere. I hear many such examples in which that availability has made a difference.
That begs a question about the lack of reliable funding to maintain trusted support. People are looking around for funding in a hand-to-mouth way—there is a lot of that going on. An effective new fuel poverty strategy should look seriously at the public funding commitment to ensure that the proper outreach is provided in areas in which it is most needed.