Fury builds against energy rip-off

Rises in energy costs are hitting the poorest sending thousands more into fuel poverty

Posted by Colin Fox on September 16, 2011. Filed under Fuel Poverty,News. Posted with the tags:Energy, Fuel, Fuel Poverty
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Fuel poverty hits the elderly particularly badly

Figures released this week reveal fuel poverty levels in Scotland significantly higher than previously reported. According to the Scottish Government the average household spends 14 per cent of its income on gas and electricity, compared to 8 per cent in 2005. Since the official definition of ‘fuel poverty’ is reached when a household pays 10 per cent or more of its income on gas and electricity this means the average household is now a great deal worse off than Ministers suggested last month when it estimated 770,000 Scots households were in difficulty.

Furthermore the latest figures refer to 2008/09 and therefore do not include the rises of 17 per cent and 19 per cent announced by the power corporations in the past two years. Campaigners suggest that the category of ‘extreme fuel poverty’ reached when households spend 20 per cent of their income on gas and electricity now includes hundreds of thousands of pensioners and families with children.

Lucy McTernan of Citizens Advice Scotland said thousands more people are now approaching her organisation for help as the huge rise in numbers in fuel poverty show the pressure now facing family budgets. ‘Many families have already reached the limit of what they can afford to pay. People who are struggling financially face a very stark choice. They skip meals in order to pay fuel bills instead. The UK Government needs to re­evaluate the energy market and start helping those in fuel poverty.’

Gas and electricity prices have doubled in Scotland since 2005. Wages, benefits and pensions, to say the least, have not. Consequently more than one million families are living without sufficient heat or light.

Scottish Socialist Party members campaigning on this issue have met thousands of people furious at the worsening situation. They are furious both at the power companies whom they feel are profiteering but also at the inertia of Government in the face of this ever worsening situation. In fact the response of Government at Westminster and Holyrood has been only to make matters worse.

The UK Chancellor George Osborne has cut the winter fuel allowance paid to pensioners and the grants available for insulation and replacement of old inefficient boilers.

For their part the SNP Government at Holyrood has abandoned its manifesto commitment to eradicate fuel poverty in Scotland by 2015 and cut the support they give to families wishing to install new boilers or insulation by 30 per cent.

The SSP has written to Alex Salmond demanding that he acts to help hard pressed families. In reply he voiced his concerns but offered no practical assistance to boil another kettle or heat a child’s bedroom.

We have also written to members of the Scottish Fuel Poverty Forum such as Help the Aged, the National Union of Students, NHS Greater Glasgow, the Poverty Alliance and the Children’s Fuel Poverty Coalition asking them what impact the soaring levels of fuel poverty are having on their client groups and what choices people are having to make on other aspects of the household budget in order to pay gas and electricity bills.

The Scottish Socialist Party has demanded that Governments at Holyrood and Westminster intervene to cap these bills and deal with the immediate problem as well as provide a coherent and sustainable energy policy for the long term. We have suggested that when a household can show its energy bill to income ratio has reached 9.95 per cent they should automatically qualify for government support to prevent them falling into fuel poverty. This scheme can be paid for by a tax on power company profits so that the industry has an incentive to prevent customers falling into this trap. We also demand that the Government double the winter fuel allowance to pensioners, not cut it. Currently it is a one off payment of £250 for over 60’s and £400 for over 80’s. That is patently not enough when the average combined bill far gas and electricity is almost £1,500 a year.

Shelter in Scotland has concluded that we need to build 100,000 energy efficient new houses for the public sector annually to replace those dwellings unfit for human habitation on energy efficiency grounds. We agree.

In the long run however, if we are to escape the effects of rising cost of the ever diminishing oil and gas reserves, we need to invest in renewable forms of electricity generation. Diversifying away from costly and toxic fossil fuels is vital and we need to ensure that the benefits of all these new technologies are localised first and foremost. Which in turn means that the energy industry needs to be returned to public ownership so that the heating needs of the population are always put ahead of the financial interests and the greed of private company stockholders.