Ofgem to call for vulnerable households register, with 1.7m to miss energy support
The energy regulator Ofgem will on Monday call for vulnerable households to be better protected through a new universal priority services register, as researchers warn that about 1.7m households in severe fuel poverty will miss out on extra help because they are not registered to receive certain benefits.
A report commissioned by the Child Poverty Action Group found that the UK government’s new plans to offer targeted help for the most vulnerable households would fail to reach those who were not registered for benefits, including 688,000 fuel-poor households with children.
The new support to help vulnerable households pay their energy bills includes a £900 payment for those on means-tested benefits, £300 for pensioners and an extra £150 for disabled people. However, many fuel-poor households – mostly based in London, the north-east and the north-west – will go without, according to researchers at the University of York.
The targeted payments replace a previous government support scheme that offered a £400 discount to help all households cover their winter energy bills. From 1 April the government has offered a cap on the unit cost of energy, to an average of £2,500 a year for a typical household, as well the one-off payments for households that receive certain benefits.
Prof Jonathan Bradshaw, from the University of York’s social policy research unit, said the study shows “the limits of using the receipt of social security benefits to mitigate fuel poverty”.
Simon Francis, the coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said that, if anything, the findings of the study “underestimate of the problem as the definition of fuel poverty used for these calculations is one of the most targeted available”.
He added: “Millions of
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