£10 daily payment linked to Met Office forecasts could help thousands | Personal Finance | Finance
Low income households must be given a £10 “Extreme Weather Payment” linked to Met Office winter weather forecasts, top academics and poverty campaigners are demanding.
The measure is needed to help all those on low incomes, including pensioners and families, to keep warm as temperatures plunge.
It is argued that the payment should be triggered and paid in advance for every day that the Met Office forecasts that temperatures will fall to -4 Celsius or lower.
Supporters of the idea suggest it would help those hit by the removal of the Winter Fuel Payment and would replace an existing failing regime that MPs have condemned as “out-dated”.
The demand follows evidence that, currently, many thousands of struggling households turn their heating down or off on the coldest days of the winter for fear of running up a heating bill that they cannot afford to pay.
This self-rationing of heat and light is putting people’s lives at risk amid evidence that there are typically thousands of so-called “excess deaths” every winter due to health conditions made worse by the cold.
New research found some of the UK’s poorest households use 21 percent less energy during cold weather than other households, leaving them exposed to potentially dangerous cold damp homes.
Researchers also found that households on smart prepayment meters could not stay warm when it got really cold and became disconnected from their energy.
Alarmingly, those most affected were households identified as vulnerable and listed on the Priority Services Register – the sick, disabled, elderly and young.
The analysis was conducted by a group of academics from the UCL Energy Institute, the University of Oxford Environmental Change Institute and Cambridge Architectural Research.
Eoghan McKenna, of the UCL Energy Institute, said: “We know that these fuel poor households are living in colder homes, and that they cut back on their heating in response to the rise in energy prices.”
Academics found that the poorest households are those least able to respond to the coldest weather and examined the effectiveness of the current Cold Weather Payments system. This pays out £25 to eligible households after there has been a week of below freezing weather, but was found that it covered less than half the extra cost of keeping warm during a cold snap.
This support regime has been condemned by MPs on the House of Commons Energy Committee report as “an outdated, old-fashioned scheme.”
In place of the current system, the new paper recommends that an Extreme Weather Payment system is set up that credits the energy account of all eligible households on every day that the Met Office declares the minimum temperature will be -4 degrees Celsius or lower on the following day.
The payment of £10 per day would be made in advance of the cold weather, on a daily basis. Advocates argue it should be available to all vulnerable households to offset the extra cold and existing fuel poverty.
Dr Tina Fawcett of the Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University, said: “This simple change, which will not be expensive, will help households stay warm when it really matters. It will ensure the Government can deliver the right support at the right time.”
Coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, Simon Francis, said: “Exposure to critically low levels of energy use in fuel poor households means that they are not heating their homes to an adequate level – leaving them to live in cold, damp conditions.
“While energy saving through better insulation and ventilation of properties is part of the long term solution to people living in cold damp homes, we need emergency support for households for foreseeable winters.
“For a Chancellor suffering from the political fallout from the Winter Fuel Payment cuts, a modern, updated, compassionate level of support during cold weather should be an obvious step to take.”
Jason Palmer from Cambridge Architectural Research and UCL, said: “It is extremely worrying that households in fuel poverty are cutting energy use compared to other households when it is coldest. This puts their health, and ultimately their lives, at risk.”
