With the low temperatures currently in the UK, this report highlights the use of pre-payment metres having a detrimental effect on lives and the inability to afford electricity could be responsible for 4000 avoidable deaths last winter. For me, it’s just another reason for utility companies to be re-nationalised and costs equalised so that everyone is on the same, flat rate tariff.
PRESSURE is mounting on the Government to ban energy firms from forcing prepayment meters on customers.
Groups including Fuel Poverty Action and the National Pensioner’s Convention yesterday ramped up calls for the practice to end.
It comes amid fears that the poorest are being left without heating as temperatures plummet.
Of the 13,400 excess deaths last winter reported by the Office for National Statistics, the charity National Energy Action says 4,000 were preventable – 45 a day.
Citizens Advice estimates that 3.2 million people could not afford to top up their energy meter for 24 hours or more last year.
There is also evidence that courts are routinely waving through applications from energy suppliers to force entry to homes in order to fit the meters.
An investigation by the i newspaper found just 72 of more than 500,000 such applications have been refused since July 2021.
In Westminster yesterday, protesters highlighted the plight of those living in cold homes. Ruth London, of Fuel Poverty Action, said: “We need an outright ban, and urgent removal of the hundreds of thousands of meters installed where they are not safe or practical.”
Jan Shortt, of the National Pensioners’ Convention, said: “It’s shameful that anyone in this country should die as a result of the cold.”
Business Secretary Grant Shapps said he would write to energy regulator Ofgem.
Labour also wants the forced installations of prepay meters halted.
