Winter fuel crisis looms

The government estimates 1 million living in fuel poverty in Scotland

Posted by Colin Fox on October 14, 2011. Filed under Fuel Poverty,News. Posted with the tags:Fuel Poverty
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Gas bills are increasing along with electricity charges

A 49 year old man from Craigton in Glasgow spoke to a radio station show last week to highlight the difficulties he faces with gas and electricity bills.

He explained how he had to give up his job to care for his elderly mum who is suffering from dementia.

As a result of moving in with her she lost her £400 winter fuel allowance.

And as the care she needs means the heating must be on all day and the washing machine used frequently they now find themselves paying 40 per cent of their entire benefit income on gas and electricity bills!

Such heartbreaking circumstances are unfortunately increasing as the price of gas and electricity continues to rise. The definition of fuel poverty is reached when a household pays 10 per cent of its income on energy.

The situation is so bad that the Government reckons more than one million households in Scotland now find themselves in that unwelcome position.

Indeed the Dept of Energy and Climate Change has been forced to coin the term ‘extreme fuel poverty’ to describe those paying 20 per cent of their income on power bills.

There is as yet no term to describe circumstances the condition where people are paying 40 per cent of their money to power companies to keep warm and clean.

Ann Robinson, Consumer Policy Director of uSwitch.com reports that seven million households across the UK are already experiencing fuel poverty.

“The UK is on the brink of an affordability crisis” she said this week “when it comes to household energy. We are now just £207 away from hitting an affordability ceiling where consumers start rationing their usage as if they were living in the third world.”

The Government and the ‘big six’ energy companies appear reluctant even to acknowledge the problem far less offer any practical help.

Indeed the Westminster Government has reduced the winter fuel allowance for pensioners this year from £400 to £300 as part of its package of austerity measures.

And the SNP Government at Holyrood has likewise announced cuts to those programmes designed to help with the installation of new household heating systems and insulation.

Alex Neil, the SNP Infrastructure Minister, has been widely criticise for these cuts at this time and for abandoning a commitment his administration made in 2007 to eradicate fuel poverty in Scotland by 2015.

The power companies also now enjoy the kind of reputation usually only reserved for the banks and swindling MP’s.

The suspicion that they are profiteering at the expense of their customers is widely held especially as they are quick to put bills up when the price of gas on world markets increases but slow to reduce them when it falls.

Furthermore they have been widely condemned for the pricing practices they employ.

A group of academics, mathematicians, accountants and business consultants were commissioned by a national newspaper to unravel the mysterious logic behind the 400 different price tariffs employed by the big six energy companies.

After a week of thorough examination these ‘wise men’ concluded the tariffs were entirely arbitrary and designed solely to maximise profits.

Scottish Socialist Party branches in Edinburgh and West Lothian have been campaigning heavily on the issue in recent weeks and witnessing first hand the fury customers feel.

We have also enjoyed enormous support for our petition calling for power companies found guilty of profiteering to be prosecuted, for energy bills to be capped, for the winter fuel allowance to be doubled and extended to other vulnerable groups, for the Government to diversify away from expensive fossil fuels and for the energy industry to be returned to public ownership.

It is only through measures like these that the spectre of third world conditions being visited on Scotland this winter with the consequent rise in cold related deaths can be avoided.