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Academics behind the study recommend replacing the current system of cold weather payments, which give £25 to if average temperatures fall below freezing for seven consecutive days
Extreme weather payments could provide potentially life-saving help to hard-up households this winter, researchers say.
Academics who carried out analysis recommend replacing the current system of cold weather payments, which give £25 to eligible households if average temperatures in an area fall below freezing for seven consecutive days. However, the report found they cover less than half the extra cost of keeping warm during a cold snap.
Instead, they suggest a system that credits the energy accounts of all eligible households with £10 on every day the Met Office declares the minimum temperature will be minus 4 degrees Celsius or lower on the following day.
Dr Tina Fawcett of Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, and one of those behind the study, said: “This simple change, which will not be expensive, will help households stay warm when it really matters. It will ensure the Government can deliver the right support at the right time.”
It comes amid anger at Labour for scrapping the up to £300 winter fuel payments for most pensioners to help tackle a funding crisis.
The analysis, also by UCL Energy Institute and Cambridge Architectural Research, found some of the UK’s poorest households use 21% less energy during cold weather than other households, leaving them exposed to potentially dangerous cold damp homes.
Simon Francis, coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said: “Exposure to critically low levels of energy use in fuel poor households means that they are not heating their homes to an adequate level – leaving them to live in cold, damp conditions.
“While energy saving through better insulation and ventilation of properties is part of the long term solution to people living in cold damp homes, we need emergency support for households for foreseeable winters. For a Chancellor suffering from the political fallout from the Winter Fuel Payment cuts, a modern, updated, compassionate level of support during cold weather should be an obvious step to take.”
Jason Palmer, from Cambridge Architectural Research and UCL, added: “It is extremely worrying that households in fuel poverty are cutting energy use compared to other households when it is coldest. This puts their health, and ultimately their lives, at risk.”
