Have this week's events brought good news or bad for older
people?
By Rebecca Law, Media and PR Officer
Andrew Lansley this week announced a new cross government
initiative - The Cold Weather Plan - to help keep people warm and
healthy throughout the winter months. The plans will see the
government make an extra £10million available to support existing
government schemes for those at risk of fuel poverty. On the
surface, this sounds great, but put bluntly, the figure is like a
snowflake in a blizzard.
If the extra £10million promised by the government were
divided equally between all older people in the UK, it would equate
to 99p per person, or £2.50 if distributed just to our poorer
pensioners.
If the £10million were used to support Warm Front, it could help
around 5,000 low income households with improvements to heating and
insulation (usually worth up to £3,500). So it's a good week for the lucky 5,000 who
would qualify, but a bad week
for the millions of other people who would remain left out in the
cold.
Our own experiences, from the people we support, have shown that
while responsive with processing applications, completion of Warm
Front work can take upwards of four or five months, which will be
of little - or no - help to older people struggling with higher
energy prices and poorly insulated homes this winter.
The proposed measures (which you can read more about here) do nothing to address rising energy costs.
There were 27,000 excess winter deaths last year, a tenth of which,
according to the Hills Fuel Poverty Review, were expected to have
been as a direct result of fuel poverty. And with energy prices up
by 18% since then, and today's news that more than 400,000 over-70
households are currently in severe financial difficulties, it looks
like we're headed away from the frying pan and into the fire. Age
UK have already predicted that 200 older people could die each day
this coming winter because they can't afford to heat their
homes.
And while Mr Lansley was happy to announce these new cold
weather measures this week, there was again, neatly, no mention of
the fact that while the average annual fuel bill has gone up by
£100, the Government has quietly reduced the Winter Fuel Payment
by, wait for it... £100 (that's for the over-80s - it's been
reduced by £50 for pensioners under 80). There is also no mention
that the eligibility criteria for the Warm Front Grant has been
tightened, and it's doubtful that this extra £10million promised by
Lansley will bridge the gap created by these changes.
People who are worried about paying their fuel bills this winter
will, for now, be breathing a sigh of relief - and not through any
government action but through the mere fact that chance has
delivered us one of the mildest Octobers on record. When the cold
does finally decide to bite (and it will if this week's reports of
a predicted "Siberian freeze" are to be believed) despite these
positive moves, this could still be a winter of discontent for
many.
