There are 40,000 households in the Constituency of Houghton and Sunderland South, which is predominantly urban.
The median weekly wage for full time employees is £540 (it is £510 in the North East Region and £570 in the UK).
Home energy performance
There are 26,500 homes with an EPC rating lower than C, which therefore need improvement to meet the Government's home energy efficiency target for 2035 – which the EEIG recommends bringing forward to 2030.
Houghton and Sunderland South ranks 136/573 England and Wales Constituencies for the share of homes (13,500) rated C. This is better than the UK average.
It ranks 560/573 for the share of homes (300) rated F or G (lower ranking is better). This is better than the UK average:
In Constituency
UK-Wide
Home energy investment
26,500 homes below an EPC C rating means 2,600 need to be improved each year to meet the EPC C target for all homes by 2030.
3,708 households have received assistance with energy efficiency measures over the seven years of the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) to the end of 2019. That's 9.7% of households in Houghton and Sunderland South, higher than the Great Britain average of 8.0%.
In 2019, 130 households were supported by ECO with a total investment of £420,000.
Number of households supported with ECO
Getting all homes up to EPC C requires investment of £119.3 million by 2030 – £11.9 million per year.
Alongside regulation of minimum energy efficiency standards for the rented sectors, Government should contribute around £39.0 million of this total (£3.9 million per year to 2030). Some of this will continue to come from the Energy Company Obligation. More may come from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and Home Upgrade Grants promised in the 2019 manifesto, to address social housing and some of the 300 homes in Houghton and Sunderland South rated EPC F or G (i.e. for households on low incomes).
The remainder needs to come from able-to-pay homeowners incentivised by a step-change in government support for energy efficiency investment. Critically, this support is currently missing from existing policy and manifesto commitments.
For example, varying the rate of Stamp Duty to take account of the EPC rating alongside the sale price could incentivise investment by homeowners and help to embed good energy performance in property values.
In Houghton and Sunderland South over the last five years, the average number of residential property transactions subject to Stamp Duty was 1,200.
If the properties transacted reflect the Constituency-wide composition of EPC ratings, then 800 properties rated D or worse change hands each year and homeowners could – with a Stamp Duty incentive in place – be motivated to improve them.
This could therefore make a significant contribution to the 2,600 properties that need to be improved in Houghton and Sunderland South each year to meet the EPC C target by 2030 – alongside rented sector regulation, a properly funded and locally led scheme (potentially Home Upgrade Grants), the ECO, and other incentives.
Wider impacts
Getting all homes up to a good level of efficiency would save each household on average £270 per year on their energy bills at current energy prices. This would amount to £7.1 million per year across Houghton and Sunderland South once all homes are improved.
The number of economically active people in Houghton and Sunderland South is 42,200, of whom 700 work in construction. 2,610 economically active people aren't employed. Energy efficiency investment could support employment of 204 people to 2030.
The annual net gross value added from an energy efficiency infrastructure investment programme in Houghton and Sunderland South would be £4.8 million. The present value of GVA over the duration of a programme to 2030 would be £39.9 million.
Other benefits not quantified here include increased tax revenues, the avoided (including hidden) costs of unemployment, more spending power, and the latter's impact on the Houghton and Sunderland South's economy.
Fuel poverty and excess winter mortality
3,500 households are in fuel poverty: 8.8%, lower than England's average level of 11.1%. This ranks it 153 out of 533 English Constituencies (higher rank is better).
There were 110 excess winter deaths in 2016/17, of which:
33 can be attributed to cold housing conditions
22 can be linked to the coldest 25% of homes in Houghton and Sunderland South
11 can be directly attributed to fuel poverty
In 2016/17, there were 37.4% more deaths in winter compared to the non-winter period.
The vulnerability of Houghton and Sunderland South to excess winter mortality ranked 31 out of 561 (lower is worse) Constituencies for which data are available.
