Fuel poverty an overlooked outcome of Covid crisis – Gina Davidson

“Coal burns. Coal is momentary and coal is costly. There will be no more coal burned in this office today, is that quite clear, Mr. Cratchit?”

People’s Energy, the UK’s first Community Interest Company energy supplier, is launching an ‘end fuel poverty’ campaign with a TV advert fronted by ex-rugby player Gareth Thomas.

The bleak existence of Bob Cratchit before Ebenezer Scrooge sees the error of his ways in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is, as in the best of fiction, not far removed from reality. But as it was in Victorian Britain, so it still is for thousands of Scots today.

Even now despite more energy-efficient homes, with central heating, double glazing, solar panels and cavity wall insulation, there are still too many people who live with the appalling choice of heating or eating.

Yet fuel poverty is the kind of scandal which goes mostly unnoticed. Supermarkets can't put out bins for donations to “energy banks”, there is not a daily running total of the lives affected by the debilitating condition of not having enough money to feed the pre-payment electric or gas meter.

Forecasts for this winter predict the coldest since 2012 with temperatures dropping to minus 10C, and with more people working at home than ever as a result of Covid, as well as many still on furlough or now claiming Universal Credit because of redundancy, the cost of heating is looming large for more people than usual.

Even before the Covid crisis, one-in-four Scottish households were classed as being in fuel poverty, with 11.3 per cent in “extreme fuel poverty”, meaning people are spending more than 20 per cent of their income, after housing costs, on energy.

Those numbers can surely only rise this year and while a Fuel Poverty Bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament last year, the strategy to get those targets met has, like much government business, been delayed indefinitely as a result of Covid.

Of course, those who are eligible will receive the Winter Fuel Payment, and the Scottish government has introduced a Child Winter Heating Assistance allowance of £200 to help families of severely disabled children. There was also an announcement of £16 million to improve energy efficiency in people’s homes, though given current restrictions such schemes are not working at pace.

But without doubt, rising fuel poverty is opening yet another crisis front for both the UK and Scottish governments. In a normal year, for every fall of one degree under 5C there is a 19 per cent rise in GP appointments with elderly people suffering respiratory conditions. This year they may not go to the doctor at all, and the pandemic could well claim more lives as a result.

Government and employers could do more now to help those struggling; the former could rule out the potential charge being considered by Ofgem of £21 per household to help energy suppliers whose profits are affected by families falling into energy debt, as well as increase the amount and availability of crisis grants; the latter could raise, or even introduce, working-from-home allowances.

If you're able, you can do something too. Energy Action Scotland is raising funds to provide as many struggling families as possible with a low-energy pressure cooker, to cut their cooking costs by up to 50 per cent. They’ll also provide recipes to enable them to produce warm, nutritious meals. It could make someone’s Christmas, and it's better than a lump of coal.

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