Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable households have two days to apply for £400 support on energy bills.
Campaigners have urged the Government to extend Wednesday’s deadline for the “alternative fund” of the Energy Bill Support Scheme.
The Mirror can reveal two months after applications opened in March, just 13% of eligible families had applied. The fund is for people without a direct relationship to an electricity supplier, including people living in park homes and care homes.
It was supposed to benefit 900,000 households who missed out over the winter, and cost £360million.
But by May 3, excluding rejected and cancelled applications, just 120,910 had applied and 100,940 had received the money, totalling £40m. Fuel Poverty Action slammed the “badly managed and badly advertised scheme” and called on No10 to extend the deadline by six months.
It added: “This is horrendous. A lot of people are relying on that money.”
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said “This is an application-based scheme. We have worked through a variety of means of communication.”
Lib Dem Sarah Olney said: ” Conservative Ministers have messed this up.”
Apply online at https://www.gov.uk/apply-energy-bill-support-if-not-automatic or call 0808 175 3287.
