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Millions in fuel poverty to lose out on government help

NEARLY two million households in fuel poverty — 668,000 of them with children — will go without government help in the next year, a new study has found.

Researchers at University of York, working with anti-poverty umbrella organisation Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), have found that millions will lose out as the government’s Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS) is cut.

The scheme, issued in £66 or £67 payments, was paid through energy suppliers and either credited to bills or paid to their customers.

However, the End Fuel Poverty Coalition estimates that as much as £280m of that cash still sits in the coffers of energy suppliers, not least because many vouchers for those on pre-payment meters, often those in the greatest need, are uncashed.

The study finds that the replacement cost of living payment, a payment based on benefit eligibility, could pass the “working poor” by, particularly in London and north-east and north-west England where 1m fuel-poor owner-occupied households and over 500,000 struggling homes in the private rented sector could be ineligible.

University of York’s Professor Jonathan Bradshaw described its findings as “an indication of the limits of using the receipt of social security benefits to mitigate fuel poverty.”

Child Poverty Action Group’s Alison Garnham said: “The government’s one-off cost-of-living payment is welcome, but this data shows it doesn’t go far enough. Flat-rate payments leave families with children, who have higher living costs, short-changed.”

Simon Francis, co-ordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, commented: “Without further government support and rapid improvement in the energy efficiency of homes, the Dickensian conditions experienced by millions this winter will be replicated again. 

“Until Britain’s broken energy system is reformed, we will continue to see households rely on government support to help them through the energy bills crisis.”

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