Frozen out

Going to bed in the pitch black, avoiding buying new clothes or a new washing machine or sleeping in the sitting room because the bedroom is too cold. This may be the situation for as many as 900,000 households in Scotland who are believed to be in fuel poverty; an estimated 40 per cent of the population who spend 10 per cent or more of their household income on heating their homes.

Winter is now well and truly here in Scotland with snow on the hills and temperatures dropping below freezing, which means the issue of how to find money for heating for another month becomes all the more pertinent.

Ann Lynch, who lives in Clydebank, helped set up Campaign 250 three years ago. The group is calling for measures to end fuel poverty including extending the winter fuel payment to disabled people and people with young children. Almost everyone involved in setting up Campaign 250 has first-hand experience of fuel poverty - including Ann, who, after losing her job at Glasgow City Council 12 years ago, has been unemployed.

This year fuel bills have risen again - with the last of the ‘big six’, E.on, confirming this month it was raising gas prices by more than 9 per cent, electricity by 7.7 per cent and dual fuel by 8.4 per cent, but she criticised in particular the prepayment meters that can leave people without heat and power when the money runs out.

“With a pre-payment meter you selfdisconnect, you disconnect yourself,” she said.

“The energy companies will tell you and I know because I’ve had this argument, that they give you an extra £5 - they reckon that gives you a day to top up. But if you’re on benefit and you’ve got no money for a couple of days, which is not unusual when you’re waiting for your giro, you cannot top that up and get cut off so sometimes people go two, three days without electricity. They call it the ‘blind week’ - they just go to bed.” She estimates that in the last seven years, the cut-off has happened to her up to 18 times.

Her campaign has meant speaking to people in similar circumstances across Scotland and she told Holyrood that people often feel embarrassed to talk about their experiences.

“People don’t like to say they’re poor, they don’t like to say they’re in poverty,” she said. “It almost feels like they are a victim or that they’ve somehow caused it. “Certainly the media and daytime television remind us everyday that it is our fault. I think what I’ve managed to do with this is to lift the lid off some of it. I have had stories of a 96-year-old woman and a woman with a new born baby - horror stories.” And the impact goes further than simply having a cold home, she adds: “This only crystallises in your head when you experience it, it affects how you eat - one of the problems with fuel poverty is, when it comes to the winter, healthy eating goes out of the window.

“First of all, the kitchen is too cold to spend any time chopping up veg and peeling potatoes and being involved in turning on ovens and rings when you’re baltic, standing in your hat and scarf and coat, trying to cook potatoes. Even if you did manage to do that, there’s no way you’re going to pay for the additional heating involved in heating up an electric oven, which takes ages.

You are likely to be using three or four rings on your cooker and the meter will just go round and round. At the end of the day, it’s easier to buy cheap microwave meals - cheap food, full of salt and sugar that will ensure you will probably die before you’re 55.”

She adds: “It impacts on every bit of your life, you don’t do family bonding. People don’t pop in for a cup of tea, you don’t really want to communicate with people because you don’t actually want to leave your duvet, it’s got all sorts of consequences and affects your mental health.”

Gwen Chrystal, 67, who lives in Pilton, wants to see more action from the UK Government to tackle the ‘big six’ energy companies and stop spiralling prices - she told Holyrood that she often prefers to sleep in her sitting room, because the bedroom is too cold. She said: “You could keep the heat on for about three or four hours, turn it off and within a couple of hours the thermometer in my room is warning ‘hypothermia’.

Lorraine Carroll, 43, from Old Kilpatrick, found herself in fuel poverty after leaving her job when her daughter Aisha was born two years ago. Aisha was born with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome which has affected her development and means her mum has been unable to return to work.

She said: “The gas is unbelievably extortionate and I find that I’m missing buying some things to provide the heat in my house and it’s really important we have heat because Aisha’s susceptible to chest infections because of her syndrome.”

Although she said she would never go without food - particularly as Aisha’s condition means she has to pay extra attention to her diet, she said that in a cold spell, she is constantly checking the Direct Gov website to see if the period has been long enough to qualify for an extra payment.

She has received help and advice from Clydebank Independent Resource Centre, particularly in dealing with her energy provider over a dispute over a large bill.

However, Danny McAfferty, chairman of the centre, said he preferred not to isolate the issue into simply fuel poverty. He said: “If people are poor, this affects all areas. They are forced to choose between fuel poverty, or food poverty or something else - that is no kind of choice to make.” The total funds allocated to tackle fuel poverty by the Scottish Government in 2012/13 amount to about £200m - with £65m coming in direct payments and the rest from private investment.

"By moving to such a supplier with a collective purchasing scheme, a customer might save, for example, £100 but would lose £130 from the Warm Home Discount Scheme.  This equates to a bad move for that customer overall.”