- Rise in fuel poverty is a ‘national scandal’, By Graham Snowdon, October 14, 2010, The Guardian: “A senior charity executive has described the increase in fuel poverty as ‘a national scandal’ after official figures released today showed that the number of fuel-poor families rose to 4.5m in 2008, around one in six of all UK households. A fuel-poor family is defined as one that has to spend more than 10% of its income on heating its home to a decent standard. According to the latest data in the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) statistics, an extra half a million households fell into this category from 2007-2008. The Annual Report on Fuel Statistics 2010 showed vulnerable households in the UK as a whole – around three-quarters of homes – were especially hard-hit, with fuel poverty in these homes rising to 3.75m in 2008, up by 500,000 from the previous year…”
- Fuel poverty doubles in five years, By Harry Wollop, October 14, 2010, The Telegraph: “With the average British fuel bill climbing to well over £1,000 a year – for many pensioners the largest bill they have to pay all year – a worryingly large number of people are struggling to keep their homes warm. A household is defined as being fuel poor if it has to spend 10 per cent or more of its income on paying to keep the home adequately warm. In 2003 the number of households hit a low of two million, but it climbed to four million in 2007 and then 4.5 million in 2008, the figures for which were published today by the Department of Energy & Climate Change…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty