[ad_1]
Photo by Wiktor Szymanowicz/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Hopes of a mild winter in the UK are dropping along with the mercury. On 28 November, the Met Office said the month would end with the “coldest spell of the autumn so far”, predicting temperatures to dip to -3°C in southern England.
Yet as the cold sets in, many Brits are unable to switch the heating on. Energy bills, double what they were last winter, are too high for the more than two million people that are already in debt to energy companies. As consumers do not pay their bills, they are forced on to pre-payment meters, which require topping up and cost more than the direct debit system. They also enable desperate people to “self-disconnect” to reduce costs.
While pre-payment installation is supposed to be a last resort, 20,000 households a month are being moved on to pre-payment meters at the moment, according to the End Fuel Poverty Coalition. This is in spite of the government’s energy price guarantee, which caps unit prices to ensure the average household energy bill is £2,500 until next April.
[See also: Energy prepayment meters are a national disgrace]
If millions “can’t pay”, there is also a smaller – but influential – “won’t pay” contingent. More than 250,000 people pledged to stop paying their energy bills on 1 December in a “bill strike”. They are participating in the Don’t Pay UK campaign, which is protesting for energy companies and the government to introduce fairer energy provision. This would include reversing the price hike to its pre-April 2021 level of £1,042 a year, scrapping enforced pre-payment meters, and the introduction of a social tariff for lower-income households – an idea backed by the consumer champion Martin Lewis and now being considered in the Treasury.
Select and enter your email address
Morning…
..
[ad_2]
