Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | JANUARY 2023 | 25 Energy For a better future, we must learn from the past Targeting fi nancial support at the most vulnerable energy customers is welcome but many who are struggling will not meet the threshold for assistance. Comment M y kids seem to be obsessed with history at the moment, or the "olden days" as they call it, which apparently I lived in, back in coastal East Yorkshire in the 1980s. This has made me think about how things have changed over the years, but also how things are very much the same too. I grew up in the shadow of the energy industry. Easington gas terminal was a short distance from home and provided well paid jobs for engineers and o shore workers alike, who earned every penny they received. But the paradox was that despite the area being rich in energy, it was also rich in fuel poverty. Rich is the wrong word to use, but like a seam of coal, it ran deep. Households had coping strategies to get through the winter. Many homes, indeed whole communities, weren't connected to the gas network and so used more expensive ways to heat their homes, or didn't in many cases. Prepayment was common and on more than one occasion I can remember our neighbour asking to bor- row 50 pence for the slot meter. I'm not sure how di erent things are today. Yes, we have alternatives to the gas that came onshore down the road, but there are still signiˆ cant numbers of people who live in fuel poverty, or worse. Fuel Bank Foundation, the charity I head, supports households who are in what we call fuel crisis – typi- cally prepayment customers who can't a ord to buy energy today, and so live in the cold without heat and power. Like a foodbank, we provide crisis help, which includes providing emergency fuel vouchers to get meters running again, as well as longer-term support. The challenges our clients are facing are signiˆ cant and any resilience they once had seems to have been eroded. This manifests itself with people ration- ing energy, turning the heating down, or o , and having cold food instead of hot. And for some people, simply living without. Like back in the "olden days", we are seeing increased numbers of families who aren't in a warm home, with the knock-on impact this has on health and wellbeing. Yes, most can survive in a cold home, but I am not sure that "surviving" is the answer. I was therefore interested to see the detail of the chancellor's Autumn Statement, speciˆ cally the support that would be provided to those who need it most, such as low income households, the vulnerable, and disabled. I think most people accepted that the economics of the Energy Price Guarantee meant it couldn't be provided to everyone indeˆ nitely, and so the increase to £3,000 wasn't a surprise. And although the ˆ nancial support for those in receipt of certain bene- ˆ ts or pensions will take the edge o , the average house- hold in receipt of working age beneˆ ts will still need to ˆ nd £2,100 from April to keep warm and to power their homes, compared to around £1,300 a year ago. What stands out, however, is that many people – and we see them coming to Fuel Bank centres daily – are in fuel poverty but are outside the threshold to receive sup- port from beneˆ ts. They will be facing a 43% increase in real terms from today's bill, with the current £66 per month Energy Bill Support Scheme factored in. It's also important to remember that the "average" £3,000 quoted hides those families who have higher consumption than the norm, who will be even worse o . A few weeks back I heard from a local advice agency in Scotland which had calculated that in its community, average energy bills were £4,500 and not the current £2,500. To ensure the support provided is fair and just, it needs to be š exed to help those who have higher con- sumption, or are outside of the current beneˆ t thresh- olds but are in fuel poverty all the same. Those who prepay also need to receive targeted sup- port, since the reality for many prepaying families is that there is all too o› en "too many days le› at the end of the month". Whereas those who pay by direct debit typically have š at payments all year round, those who prepay need to have money in their pocket to fund the energy they need today. Some say that history repeats itself. I really hope we can prove this not to be true, and we can drive further change to ensure that a warm home is a basic and not a nice to have. Energy is expensive and we all need to evaluate how we use it and how we can use less of it, but the answer cannot be that signiˆ cant parts of our society must ration and go without. I grew up in a cold home where it was o› en accepted to be the norm and I don't want kids today and tomor- row to go through this. Net zero is a huge opportunity, but to realise the beneˆ ts we have ˆ rst got to ensure that people have the heat, light and power they need to live a normal, everyday life. Matthew Cole, head of the Fuel Bank Foundation and chair of the Scottish Fuel Poverty Advisory Panel eroded. This manifests itself with people ration- ing energy, turning the heating down, or o , and having cold food instead of hot. And for some people, simply living without. Like back in the "olden days", we are seeing increased numbers of families who aren't in a warm home, with the knock-on impact this has on health and wellbeing. Yes, most can survive in a cold home, but I am not sure that "surviving" is the answer. I was therefore interested to see the detail of the chancellor's Autumn Statement, speciˆ cally the support that would be provided to those who need it most, such as low income households, the For the full version of this opinion piece, visit: https:// utilityweek.co.uk/for-a-better- future-we-must-learn-from- the-past/

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