Fuel Poverty: Homes as Health Foundations
06/10/2025
Matt Chenery
A stubborn injustice with urgent consequences
Over six million UK households remain trapped in fuel poverty, a crisis that has long been mischaracterised as simply a question of income. As Adam Scorer, Chief Executive of National Energy Action (NEA), argues, fuel poverty is “not about meter points or active consumers engaged in transactions with companies, but about human people with less consumer agency than others, greater need than others.”
Cold, unsafe homes are a health emergency, fuelling respiratory illness, poor mental health, and avoidable deaths. For many, this is not a temporary cost‑of‑living issue but a permanent reality. Scorer recalls visiting a mother in Preston who made the painful decision to send her teenage daughter to live with relatives because of mould and damp so severe that she could not face raising her in that environment. “That was when it really raised the stakes for me,” he explains. “It’s not about transactions, it’s about safe, healthy homes.”
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