The UK performs the “most poorly” out of 16 European countries when it comes to fuel poverty.
New research claims the country ranks 14th on fuel poverty, with a higher proportion of people struggling to pay their energy bills than every other European country assessed except Slovenia and Ireland.
Poor levels of insulation see UK homes fall way behind countries like Sweden, Germany and Denmark, it stated.
The UK’s most inefficient homes spend £2,670 per year on average for heating and lighting, the research added.
It also claims eight out of 10 of the English Parliamentary constituencies with the most energy inefficient homes are Conservative, with four represented by Ministers.
Jenny Holland, Head of the Parliamentary Team at the Association for the Conservation of Energy said: “Of the 26 million households in the UK, four out of five have poor levels of energy efficiency, rated band D or below.
“As today’s findings clearly show, this places our nation right at the bottom of the European rankings for housing and fuel poverty and represents an energy bill crisis for UK consumers. Ministers must now embrace the opportunity for a national energy efficiency infrastructure programme to address this at the Spending Review in November.”
Government statistics revealed more than 2 million people in England were in fuel poverty in 2013.
