Mr Andrew Snowden

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It was an opportunity missed. There are 4,765 houses in my constituency alone that are not connected to the grid. In Fylde, 28% of people are over 65, compared with a national constituency average of about 18%. That means we are dealing not just with rural isolation and rural poverty, but with the health and wellbeing of older people. As other Members have said, households with oil tanks often have septic tanks and other infrastructure that is far more costly to operate and maintain than being connected to the grid in the traditional way. That compounds the issues that are being felt now. As the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said, the funding the Government set aside works out at £35 per house. The average price of oil has gone up by about £1 per litre and the average home uses about 2,000 litres of oil, meaning that support covers less than 2% of the cost increase facing the average household. Many of my constituents have made that point to me. I encourage the Government to move faster and find more ways of supporting those people who are reliant on oil to heat their home, as the bills they face will be crippling over the winter period.