No fuel payment means a long cold winter

The Government’s refusal to extend Winter Fuel Payments to disabled people means another season of “eat or heat” choices, says Paul Carter

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has insisted that it has no plans to extend Winter Fuel Payments to disabled people, despite a leading advisory body labelling the Government’s approach to ending fuel poverty as “simply inadequate”.

A new report by the Government’s Fuel Poverty Advisory Group (FPAG) said that there are three times as many people in fuel poverty as five years ago, and that existing measures were not enough to deal with the scale of the problem.

Under the Government’s own definition, a household is said to be in fuel poverty if ten per cent of its total income is spent on fuel.

As previously reported in Disability Now, the Government admitted last year that almost 100,000 disabled people under the age of 60 are living in fuel poverty.

With average domestic fuel and energy prices having increased by 125 per cent over the past five years, it is likely that the number of households meeing the criteria is now even higher.

Chairman of FPAG, Derek Lickorish, said: “Unless fuel poverty is tackled head on, many hundreds of thousands more vulnerable pensioners, families and disabled people will struggle to afford their energy bills.

“A thorough strategy, with decisive action on social tariffs and energy efficiency, is needed from the Government to help lift the poorest households out of fuel poverty.”

However, a spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions confirmed to Disability Now that despite the criticism from FPAG, there were still “no plans at this time to extend Winter Fuel Payments to people on higher rate Disability Living Allowance.”

Jonathan Stearn, energy expert for Consumer Focus, urged the Government to “heed the warning from its own advisory group” and move to protect disabled people before fuel poverty spirals out of control.

He said: “If the Govern­ment is serious in its aim to end fuel poverty, it needs to do much more to help the most vulnerable households.

“We need to see strong action within the upcoming Energy White Paper on energy efficiency measures for fuel poor homes, social tariffs and fair pricing to help the poorest customers to afford their bills.”

The energy minister, David Kidney, defended the Government’s record, saying it had spent more than
£20 billion since 2000 on tackling fuel poverty.

“But we know the challenge needs further action and recognise that rising energy costs have reversed the downward trend on the number of households in fuel poverty.

“We will be doing all we can to ease the burden on low-income households and provide the support required to be able to heat and power their homes at an affordable cost.”