Fuel Poverty

Labour calls for emergency budget over cost of living crisis

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In view of the fact it costs more, particularly in terms of heating, to live in rural settings, we will be keeping a close eye on how the skyrocketing price of oil and gas plays out in rural communities. This story tells us:

Labour is calling for an emergency budget to bring forward more measures to tackle the cost of living crisis.

Surges in fuel, energy and food prices are hitting people’s pockets, with inflation running at a 30-year high.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told the BBC’s Sunday Morning show the government’s response had been “woeful” and demanded further measures like a windfall tax on energy firms.

A Downing Street source said the PM was working to ease the burden on families.

They said the PM was also focused on growing the economy, adding the Queen’s Speech, where the government outlines its future policies, was coming up and these issues were “utterly central to what the government is trying to do”.

The SNP called for an emergency budget earlier this month, saying the Tories had ignored the cost of living crisis “brewing under its watch”.

The party’s Treasury spokeswoman, Alison Thewliss, said: “Warm words now won’t heat up homes or food – only action will.

“The chancellor must immediately return to Parliament with an emergency budget that finally puts money into people’s pockets.”

Cost of living: Rural communities without access to mains gas face ‘a tsunami of poverty’, charity warns

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The first of two articles about the impact of rising energy costs on rural areas specifically. Less you thought rural areas were ostensibly affluent!

There’s a warning that “a tsunami of poverty” will hit rural communities if more help isn’t provided to the 14% of British households living without access to mains gas.

Many homes in the countryside which rely on oil, bottled gas, coal and wood to heat and cook are facing rapidly rising bills, made worse due to the volatility caused by the war in Ukraine.

Those alternative fuel sources are not covered by Ofgem’s increased price gap coming into force next month and are often far more expensive than mains supply.

SNP MP Drew Hendry has tabled the Energy Pricing (Off Gas Grid Households) Private Members Bill in parliament to try to provide extra help and protection for households which are off-grid.

He told the Commons last month that those households are forced to pay about four times more for their energy bills than the average home.

The problem mainly affects rural parts of the UK, where mains gas pipes do not reach.

In Cornwall, 47% of homes are off the gas grid.

Calls for social tariff on UK energy bills as rises push extra half million homes into fuel poverty

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Half a million homes is a big chunk. Many rural properties are poor when it comes to energy efficiency, they are also more expensive to buy and many rural dwellers have to rely on bottled gas which can make the energy challenges they face more acute. All of this suggests (along with the on-going truth exposed by the Rowntree studies, that it is more expensive to live in rural settings) that this phenomena will bear down heavily on a significant number of less well off rural dwellers. The story tells us:

The government faces calls to bring in a social tariff to help struggling households pay their energy bills as soaring prices threaten to drive an extra half a million homes into fuel poverty this winter.

Some of the UK’s biggest energy companies have warned ministers that millions of bill payers will need extra help this winter as the regulator prepares to reveal one of the steepest ever hikes to the energy price cap.

The regulator, Ofgem, is expected to raise prices by about £150 a year for 15m homes using a default dual-fuel energy tariff from October because gas prices have soared to 16-year highs in the past week.

The “unprecedented” global gas market surge could drive Ofgem’s energy cap, which is calculated based on the cost of supplying energy, to a record £1,288 on average a year. It would also add over 500,000 homes to the more than three million already in fuel poverty, according to campaigners.

The looming crisis threatens to deal a particularly heavy blow to families hard hit by the financial fallout of the pandemic by coinciding with the wind-down of government furlough payments by September.

Wood burners: Most polluting fuels to be banned in the home

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No rural proofing here……

Owners of wood burners, stoves and open fires will no longer be able to buy house coal or wet wood, under a ban to be rolled out from next year.

Sales of the two most polluting fuels will be phased out in England to help cut air pollution, the government says.

Bags of logs sold in DIY stores, garden centres and petrol stations often contain wet wood – a type of wood which produces more pollution and smoke.

The public should move to “cleaner alternatives”, the government says.

Plans for the ban were first announced 18 months ago, but the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has now confirmed it is going ahead.

The government said wood burning stoves and coal fires are the largest source of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), small particles of air pollution which find their way into the body’s lungs and blood.

Particulate matter is one of several pollutants caused by industrial, domestic and traffic sources.

Tackling fuel poverty would cut winter deaths and costs to the NHS

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This is a very thought provoking article, bearing in mind the considerably poorer fuel efficiency of the rural housing stock. It tells us:

The appalling statistics on excess winter deaths in England and Wales (Last winter’s NHS crisis worst since 1976, with 50,000 excess winter deaths – ONS, 1 December) demonstrate the extreme hardship so many people face living in our dreadful, leaky homes during cold weather. For every death, probably five people had emergency admissions to hospital and 27 had additional visits to their GPs. The cost to the health service is enormous. If you could afford to keep warm, the effect of influenza would not be so serious.

There have been three recent reports from the government or its advisers setting targets to deal with the problem of the poorest people living in the least energy-efficient housing. But the rhetoric on fuel poverty is not matched by adequate policies. Worse still, no government money is going into making these leaky homes more energy efficient – that task is left to the utilities.

Number of UK households in energy debt rises by 300,0000

With energy efficiency being far less robust in rural housing this is a worrying story – with a fair number of these households likely to be in rural settings. It tells us:

The number of households already in debt to their energy supplier before winter begins has grown by more than 300,000 in the past year, according to research, with a total of nearly £400m owed to power companies.

Following a round of price hikes, the amount of debt collectively owed to energy companies in the UK hit £393m in October, an increase of almost a quarter on the same time last year. Fuel poverty campaigners said the figures were a reminder of the “huge anxiety” many people faced this winter, worrying whether they could afford to turn the heating on.

Households are usually expected to be in credit by this time of year, ahead of the higher electricity and gas consumption to come in the colder months. But research by the consumer website uSwitch found a 10th of them, 2.93 million, were in debt to their supplier, up from 2.62 million in October 2017. They owed an average of £134 each.

Millions of EDF customers face second price rise this year

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Very bad news here once the summer is over for vulnerable older people in rural England…..

Millions of EDF customers will be hit with the second hike in their energy bills in four months, prompting criticism from the government as it prepares to step in to protect consumers.

From 21 June, 1.5m households on the supplier’s dual fuel standard tariff will be paying 8.5% or £91 more a year than they were before March.

The rise will strengthen Theresa May’s hand for the regulatory intervention that she has threatened.

A government spokesman said: “This price rise, branded ‘difficult to justify’ by Ofgem, will hit around half of EDF’s customers.

“It’s another sign the market isn’t working, and we will shortly set out proposals to help energy consumers as part of the government’s Plan for Britain.”

The French firm blamed the increase on rising wholesale energy costs and government policies paid through bills, which include schemes to alleviate fuel poverty and support low carbon power.

Five of the big six energy companies have raised their prices in recent months, with only British Gas promising to freeze them until August.

Government considering plans to make 7 day switching a reality across more markets

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For too long, consumers have stayed with their energy companies, phone providers and banks because they think switching would be too cumbersome and difficult. New evidence published this week shows that consumers appreciate quick and reliable switching, on an agreed date. Currently, there is no consistency between sectors on how long it takes for consumers to switch from one service provider to another that offers them a better deal. The government is now taking the first step towards consistently quicker switching across all major services by setting out proposals which could allow consumers to switch provider in a week or less. The government is asking consumers and industry for evidence of how these proposals could be implemented and new rules could be in place as soon as next year. The call for evidence looks at how long it takes for people to switch providers across a number of markets, including energy, broadband, mobile phones, current accounts and mortgages, and asks what more could be done to speed the process up. The document also seeks views on a range of other proposals to help consumers, including requiring that customers should be able to cancel contracts online if they signed up for them online. Government will meet with industry bodies in the coming months to discuss how the proposals could be taken forward. Consumers will also be able to unlock their phone at the end of the contract for free after agreement has now been reached with major mobile providers. This means it will be easier to change providers, but keep an existing handset. Overall, handset owners spend an estimated £48 million a year unlocking their phones.

Business Secretary Sajid Javid said: “I want to give consumers more power over switching providers for the services they rely on to make sure they are getting the best deals. The government is committed to creating a system that works for consumers and makes markets more competitive. “At the moment the time it takes to switch depends on which service you are switching. I want to hear what consumers and businesses think of making switching quicker and more consistent across all markets.”

Culture Secretary John Whittingdale said: “We are more reliant on broadband and phone services than ever before. So we want it to be as easy as possible for consumers to spot the best deal for them, and switch providers quickly and easily if they want to. The measures we are introducing will help make sure consumers are better informed about the quality of these services and the switching process is much simpler. Also, in those cases when things don’t go right, automatic compensation will be paid out.”

Rip-off energy prices are here to stay, even though watchdog has slammed the Big Six

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I regularly feature the impact of dubious charging practice by big business on driving up the already heavier cost of powering rural homes. This article is more grist to that mill. It is a sign at how effective the big six have been in changing the narrative that very significant mis-selling can be taken in the authorities stride. The author of this article agrees. He tells us:

Despite the damning report published by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) yesterday, the energy industry is likely to continue ripping us all off for many years to come.

We’ve seen so many reports criticising the Big Six suppliers, from government, consumer groups and the energy watchdog itself. In fact Ofgem became so fed up at proving unable to control the excesses of the industry it asked the CMA itself to conduct an investigation.

Despite the report, which revealed that around 70 per cent of people remain on unfair tariffs, I expect little to change. The CMA plans to get Ofgem to set up its own comparison site to help people find an independent, presumably not-for profit, answer to finding the best deal.

But, as we’ve discovered in the past, the big firms are skilled in finding ways to boost their ever-growing profits while millions in fuel poverty struggle to be able to heat their homes. The problem is that buying gas and electricity has changed in recent years.

Where we once paid what seemed a fair price to a responsible state-owned monopoly, since British Gas’s privatisation in 1986, most of us have ended up  being charged an unfair price by a near-monopoly of six.

Expats in the Med provide evidence of why they deserve winter fuel payments

I had no idea that winter fuel payments were paid to those abroad. This article made me think about the balance in tackling fuel poverty between helping those in greatest need and providing winter fuel payments as a universal benefit. It tells us:

Thousands of British expats living in Europe are lobbying MPs in Britain in the hope they can continue to receive their winter fuel payments. Many are sending pictures showing icy, snowy homes and landscapes.

Under Government plans, this winter is the last in which payments will be made to Britons living in Portugal, Spain, Greece, France, Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus.

Legislation going through Parliament now will mean the payments – which are between £200 and £300 per year – will end because those countries are deemed too warm.

But expats have been bombarding MPs and others with desperate pleas to overturn the change and retain the payment.

They argue the “temperature test” is unfair because it includes (in the case of France) averaged temperatures across both mainland France and hot, far-flung French territories such as Martinique in the Caribbean or Reunion, near Madagascar.

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