For a better future, we must learn from the past

While there have been welcome moves to target financial support at the most vulnerable energy customers next year, there are major concerns many who are struggling will not meet the threshold for assistance. Drawing from his own childhood experiences Matthew Cole, head of the Fuel Bank Foundation, says there is an urgent need to ensure no one is left behind.   

My 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 offshore 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 borrow 50 pence for the slot meter.

I’m not sure how different things are today. Yes, we have alternatives to the gas that came onshore down the road, but there are still significant numbers of people who live in fuel poverty, or worse.

Fuel Bank Foundation, the charity I head up, supports households who are in what we call fuel crisis – typically prepayment customers who can’t afford 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 and guidance to hopefully get people on a better footing.

The challenges our clients are facing are significant: the pandemic, and the current cost of living crisis are a great example of two negatives not making a positive. Any resilience that they once had seems to have been eroded. This manifests itself with people rationing energy, turning the heating down, or off, 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 new Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, specifically 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 indefinitely, and so the increase to £3,000 wasn’t a surprise. And although the financial support for those in receipt of certain benefits or pensions will take the edge off, the average household in receipt of working age benefits will still need to find £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 support from benefits. 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 off. 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 flexed to help those who have higher consumption, or are outside of the current benefit thresholds but are in fuel poverty all the same.

Those who prepay also need to receive targeted support, since the reality for many prepaying families is that there is all too often ‘too many days left at the end of the month’. Whereas those who pay by direct debit typically have flat payments all year round, those who prepay need to have money in their pocket to fund the energy they need today.

In a few short weeks, the average peak winter monthly prepayment charge for energy will be £349, compared to a little over £200 for those who pay by direct debit. The eventuality of families not having the money they need to keep warm is obvious, this year and beyond, and this needs to be addressed urgently.

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 significant parts of our society must ration and go without.

I grew up in a cold home where it was often accepted to be the norm and I don’t want kids today and tomorrow to go through this. Net zero is a huge opportunity but to realise the benefits we have first got to ensure that people have the heat, light and power they need to live a normal, everyday life. The consequences of not having this really frightens me.