Poor People are Colder though they Pay More for Fuel

The most recent figures are grim. One in six British families live in fuel poverty. It doesn’t sound so terrible, but it actually means that for those families, one tenth of everything they earn goes to energy bills.

‘Heat or Eat’ Dilemma for Poorest

And for a small proportion of the 4.4 million involved, the decision is the stark one of ‘eat or heat’ as they can’t afford to do both. The elderly and very young, and people who are disabled or have chronic illnesses are particularly at risk.

There are three major causes to fuel poverty in the UK: poor energy efficiency in houses, low incomes, and high energy prices. And the three are not exclusive – the poorest housing is inhabited by people on the lowest incomes and they are forced to pay higher prices for gas and electricity through ‘pre-payment’ or metering systems imposed on people who have failed to pay bills in the past. This can cost more than twice as much as other tariffs. In other words, those who have the coldest houses and the least money are also burdened with paying more for their gas and electricity, just because they are poor.

A National Disgrace is an International Problem

So why is it that some councils, like metropolitan Leeds and tiny rural Arun, can succeed in providing cost-effective insulation of houses, and advice on energy consumption, while others seem unable to help? Could it be because such councils, like the national government are powerless? Those gas and electricity companies have become like Russia – they have what we need, and there’s nothing we can do except pay for what they possess and we don’t – even though the British Energy Secretary has threatened to impose new legal ‘controls’ on companies that don’t transfer falling energy prices to the poorest consumers, the energy oligarchies are not shaking in their boardrooms.

Or could it be that councils don’t care? They are happy to let the gas and electricity barons exploit the poor because the government hasn’t imposed a council level target for fuel poverty that has any impact on council income, rather, there’s an aspiration to meet national targets which the government itself has stopped talking about in recent months.

The problem can be individual, but that doesn’t stop it being a global issue. Badly-heated homes mean wasted energy and more carbon emissions, which speeds up global warming and increases all of our fuel bills, not just those of the poor and needy.

Well, there’s a bit of hope for the poor and shivery – Defra has been seeking views on a new fuel poverty indicator against which local authorities in England would have to report their performance, but there are still no sanctions against under-performers, and until there are, some of the UK’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens will continue have to choose whether to eat that day, or heat their homes.

Cold homes courtesy of sailor coruscant at flickr under a creative commons licence