Activist group Generation Rent is now demanding a change to the Renters Reform Bill to help tenants with energy bills.

The group claims five times as many homeowners have received energy efficiency grants than private renters, despite tenants allegedly being at much higher risk of fuel poverty.

Since 2010, fuel poverty has fallen by 35 per cent among homeowners and by 54 per cent among council tenants – but the activists say that amongst private renters it’s just four per cent.

A statement from the group says: “Generation Rent is calling on the government to give private renters better protection from eviction and rent rises to ensure that they enjoy the benefits of energy efficiency funding and so have a stronger incentive to apply for grants.”

It continues to say that one in four private renters lives in fuel poverty, a higher rate than any other tenure. Although there are three times as many homeowners as private renters, the number in fuel poverty (1.33m) is only slightly larger than the number of private renters in fuel poverty (1.19m).

Energy efficiency measures that bring a home up to EPC Band C will lift a household out of fuel poverty.

However, Generation Rent complains that homeowners have enjoyed “the lion’s share of the grants” available to improve domestic energy efficiency.

And it states: “A major obstacle to take-up of grants in the private rented sector is poor security of tenure, which allows landlords whose properties are upgraded to raise the rent, cancelling out any energy bill savings, or evict the tenant in order to sell the improved property. 

“While the Renters (Reform) Bill aims to improve protection for tenants from arbitrary evictions, it will still allow these practices so tenants will still have little incentive to apply for a grant.”

So Generation Rent – which at the time of its introduction into Parliament supported the Bill – is now calling on the government to amend it “to protect tenants who receive an energy efficiency grant.”

It wants tenants who receive an energy efficiency grant to be protected from eviction for six years and not to be subject to any increase in rent as a result of grant-funded improvements.

“Landlords should also be required to raise the energy efficiency rating of their properties to C, to oblige them to accept grant-funded works to their property” says the group.

Dan Wilson Craw – the former deputy director of the group, now with the title of deputy chief executive – says: “This money is supposed to tackle fuel poverty, but is bypassing the people who need it the most. 

“There is understandable squeamishness about handing money to landlords who stand to make a profit, but the longer the grants system fails to work as it should, the longer tenants suffer and the further we are from meeting climate targets.

“With measures to make sure the financial benefit of grants goes to the tenant, by preventing evictions and rent increases arising from the home’s improvement, we can slash carbon emissions and jump-start improvements to renters’ living standards.”