Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Luton South, Councillor Qurban Hussain, has asked Labour MP Margaret Moran to support a private members bill which if passed would go a long way help reduce fuel poverty.

Liberal Democrat MP, David Heath, came second in the ballot for Private Member’s Bills in December and has adopted the Fuel Poverty Bill that aims to end the scourge of fuel poverty once and for all.

The Bill seeks to launch a major energy efficiency programme to bring up the homes of the fuel poor to the energy efficiency levels of new homes and to use social tariffs to limit vulnerable households’ exposure to high energy bills.

“The average fuel bill is now more than double what it was five years ago,” said Liberal Democrat Councillor Qurban Hussain. “Many pensioners are forced to make the critical decision between heating and eating during the winter and for 20,000 older people each year this decision is fatal. Fuel poverty is a main cause of excess winter deaths.”

“Sadly, the Government has consistently failed to deliver on their statutory targets to end fuel poverty in vulnerable households by 2010 and in other households by 2016. They have been repeatedly taken to task by their own Fuel Poverty Advisory Group whose last annual report said the Government’s policies and lack of action have now made it impossible to meet the 2010 target.”

“David Heath’s Fuel Poverty Bill would concentrate minds on dealing with this issue which should never have been allowed to become a problem in a comparatively wealthy country like Britain.”