Rising fuel costs and food prices and the cycle of debt are affecting millions of UK families struggling on low incomes. As autumn approaches, an alarming 2.2 million children in England are living in fuel poverty – too often where parents are being forced to make harsh choices between putting food on the table or turning the heating on. According to the government’s own statistics, families with children are the largest group of the fuel poor, representing 45% of households in fuel poverty.
It now costs a typical family with children £1,400 to heat their home adequately, according to the Association for the Conservation of Energy. For a family not in work, this is more than 10% of their income.
The effect on children can be enormous: a survey we carried out revealed that last winter 5 million families were likely to turn down the heating simply because of the cost. When families on low incomes do turn the heating on, many face impossible decisions about what else to cut. Last winter, more than four in 10 families with children said that they were likely to cut back on food as a result of paying to heat their home. Too often, families feel forced to turn to high-cost credit to pay their energy bills and put food on the table. Half a million families said they were likely to take out a high cost loan in order to pay for fuel over the winter period.
Despite the scale of the problem, nearly half of all children in poverty are missing out on crucial help that could keep them warm. There is much that can be put in place to turn this around.
The Warm Home Discount, a £140 rebate paid by energy companies to low-income households, is enough to cover a typical family’s energy bills for a month. While low-income pensioners automatically get the Warm Home Discount, families living in poverty need to apply to their supplier. Even then, they may not get this help as it is discretionary. The government needs to make sure all children living in families in poverty automatically get this rebate on their energy bills.
Another way for families in poverty to get help is through Local Welfare Assistance schemes (sometimes described as crisis loans) which provide emergency financial support, including emergency fuel costs. These programmes are vital, but from 2015 the government will stop funding them, leaving it up to local authorities to find the money to help families in need of fuel.
All local authorities should ensure they provide help with fuel where children would otherwise be at risk from the cold. The government needs make sure funding is available to enable them to do so.
In the long term, the most effective way to tackle fuel poverty is to bring down fuel bills by making the homes of low-income families more energy efficient. Britain has been branded the “cold man of Europe” on account of its poor record on fuel poverty and energy efficiency. Government must do more to promote home energy efficiency measures, and we are supporting the Energy Bill Revolution campaign to reinvest carbon taxes in energy efficiency measures for the homes of families living in poverty.
The government is currently consulting on the future of its fuel poverty strategy. This provides a great opportunity to take decisive action on issues like the Warm Home Discount, and bring children in poverty in from the cold.
Matthew Reed is chief executive of The Children’s Society
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This article is part of the Guardian’s #bigenergydebate series. Click here to find out more about this project and our partners.
