I congratulate Malcolm Bruce on securing the debate. He has an excellent track record and is widely respected in the House for his knowledge of the subject and the wider agenda. This has been an excellent debate, albeit the contributions have come from one party and from outside England; nevertheless, some sensible ideas and analysis have been offered by the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Members for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander) and for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams).

As well as the points about heating oil and the difficulties of the most vulnerable, and some excellent comments on the potential of wood fuel, with which I thoroughly concur, the right hon. Gentleman's opening remarks were absolutely spot-on. He said that, sadly, after 13 years of Labour Government, it is groundhog day on fuel poverty. In absolute terms, we are back to where we came in, despite the money that has been spent and the progress that we thought had been made. It is depressing that we are back at the bottom of the tall mountain that we have to climb to overcome fuel poverty.

Simply business as usual is not an option if we really want to crack the problem and make progress on a far greater scale and to a far more ambitious timetable. That is why my party proposes a completely new and radical approach to fuel efficiency. The measures to date have not been up to the scale of the task, not for lack of good will on the part of the Government, nor for a lack of interest in the agenda, but simply because their policies have not been up to it. I am therefore grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for providing an opportunity to set out in a little more detail how we would tackle the twin challenges of carbon emissions and fuel poverty that domestic energy efficiency throws up.

As Members know, carbon emissions from the UK's housing stock are some of the worst in Europe. Without urgent action to reduce emissions, we will struggle to stay on track to satisfy the targets implicit in the Climate Change Act 2008 and the recommended emissions reduction trajectory laid out by the Committee on Climate Change. Moreover, fuel poverty is a ballooning social justice crisis throughout the UK. The average gas bill has increased by 169 per cent. since 2003 and the average electricity bill has nearly doubled. Ofgem predicts that energy bills will rise by another 60 per cent. by 2015 and, with 40,000 people pushed into fuel poverty by every percentage point rise in fuel costs, it is clear in the statistics that we have a serious problem indeed.

It is also clear that there has been systematic failure in this Government's efforts to tackle the problem with the policy toolkit that they have had available. As right hon. and hon. Members have said, there have been too many schemes. They have often been well meaning in themselves, but the sum total of the parts is not a coherent and ambitious whole. There have been too many stop-go initiatives, too much talking and not enough action.

The Government had promised that, at the turn of 2010, no vulnerable household would be left in fuel poverty, yet current estimates suggest that nearly one fifth of UK households were still spending more than 10 per cent. of their income on energy-the key definition of fuel poverty-at the same time that British Gas announced a surge in profits. The Government have relied for too long on falling wholesale energy prices to reduce fuel poverty and have not taken any real, concrete steps to tackle the challenge on a much larger scale. The average fuel bill is now a shocking £1,300 per year, yet competition in the sector is a fraction of what it was when the industry was privatised, nearly 20 years ago.

For off-grid gas customers, the problem is particularly acute, as has been mentioned. Heating oil and electric heaters compare poorly with even fairly old gas heaters in terms of value for money, and off-grid properties tend to be less efficient and harder to insulate as they are often older, single-skinned rural buildings, or, in the case of my constituency, static homes. There is an urgent need to address energy consumption in those often vulnerable households.

Rising bills have been compounded by other Government failures. The value of the winter fuel payment has decreased in real terms. When instigated, it covered one third of the average bill; now, it barely covers one fifth. In addition, the Government have slashed the budget for their Warm Front programme. Whatever concerns we may have about the programme's effectiveness, the bottom line is that the budget reduction from £1 billion to £810 million this year will lead to 50,000 fewer vulnerable households receiving assistance from that programme this year.