Fuel poverty kills British pensioners

This video is called High energy prices fuel UK poverty.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Campaigners’ plea to end fuel poverty

Saturday 29th November 2014

by Joana Ramiro

18,200 winter deaths laid at the door of big energy fims

CAMPAIGNERS blocked the entrance to Energy UK yesterday in protest over the thousands of people who died last winter due to cold homes.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed there were 18,200 of excess winter deaths last year, almost 80 per cent of those dying being over 75.

To mark another year in which steep energy bills claimed the lives of many, activists from Fuel Poverty Action marched to the headquarters of Britain’s energy industry trade association in London’s Regent Street. Its members, including EDF and British Gas, supply energy to 26 million homes.

The campaign’s Laura Hill told the Star: “We’re here today to show solidarity and support to those who have suffered from fuel poverty and those who have died from fuel poverty.”

She added that the government had done little to tackle the problem, focusing on the “the symptoms rather than the cause.

“The only way that you’re going to overcome this is by removing a system that is made for profits and introduce a public system that’s run by the people,” said Ms Hill.

The march ended in a “die in” and a rally outside Charles House where many spoke about the squeeze between plummeting wages and rocketing bills.

All African Women’s Group spokeswoman Geraldine Takundwa said: “Women do find it difficult because some of them don’t have any support at all, so they are not even able to pay any bills.

“They have to go to charity organisations like ours where they will come and have something like breakfast, lunch and something before they go home towards evening time.”

She added that while some Londoners may have two or three houses, she can’t even heat her only home.

“We are in duvet covers, we are in blankets. If you come home, you think you’re outside because we are always wearing jackets – that’s not life,” she continued. “Energy is a human right.”

Despite showing a slight drop in winter deaths in 2013 the ONS has suggested the statistic is skewed by a milder winter.

The National Pensioners Convention demanded that government admit the drop is thanks to “luck rather than design.

“Of course any fall in winter deaths is welcome, but 150 pensioners dying a day can hardly be described as a cause for celebration,” said the group’s general secretary Dot Gibson.

OVER 100,000 people in Britain could literally freeze to death over the next 25 years because they are too poor to afford to adequately heat their homes: here.

AROUND 750,000 hard-up elderly people are having to choose between food or staying warm this winter, support charity Independent Age warned yesterday. Of Britain’s 1.6 million impoverished pensioners, 900,000 are facing severe hardship made worse by low incomes and high living costs. An estimated 890,000 people go to bed early to stay warm in winter, the charity said.

One in four single parents forced to choose between eating and heating, government stats reveal: here.

A study carried out earlier this year by NAC, and the climate change charity E3G, found that up to 3,000 people are dying each year in the UK because they cannot afford to heat their homes, with the UK having the second worst rate of winter deaths in Europe, after Ireland: here.

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