Poor Britons dying from winter cold

This video from Britain says about itself:

Understanding fuel poverty

17 September 2013

A persistently cold home causes misery, ill-health and social exclusion. Today, over 6 million households in the UK can’t afford to keep adequately warm in winter, often as a result of poor insulation standards and inefficient heating in their homes.

By Lamiat Sabin in Britain:

Winter deaths figure hits new high

Thursday 26th November 2015

FUEL poverty campaigners protesting in Parliament were turned out into the cold yesterday hours after it was revealed that 43,900 people died from winter illnesses last year.

Activists demonstrated in the Central Lobby, while Tory Chancellor George Osborne presented his spending review in the Commons, before police officers arrived to escort them outside.

But the campaigners resisted removal from the “toasty Westminster bubble” until they demonstrated with banners that exposed the highest number of cold-related deaths since 1999.

Hours before they rallied in Old Palace Yard in Westminster, releasing one black balloon for every 1,000 of the elderly, disabled and chronically ill people who died last winter.

Activists included the National Pensioners Convention (NPC), Fuel Poverty Action, Disabled People Against Cuts (Dpac), refugee charity All African Women Group and Lambeth Pensioners Action Group.

NPC called on the government to urgently investigate the scale of deaths among older people — equating to 15 dying every hour between December 2014 and March this year.

NPC general secretary Dot Gibson said ensuring vulnerable people have a warm home was a “basic requirement of what a decent society should do” amid cuts to adult social care.

Gill Thomson, whose diabetic brother David Clapson died following cuts to his benefits, said the ex-soldier couldn’t afford food or pre-payment meter top-ups to refrigerate his insulin.

She added that it “saddened” her that people were left to die from hunger and destitution in the sixth richest country in the world.

The government has “shown no signs” of investing in insulation, renewable energy or renationalising the big six energy firms to bring down fuel bills, Laura Hill of Fuel Poverty Action said.

Ms Hill added: “We expect that the cuts and policies in the review will condemn thousands more of the most vulnerable and fuel-poor people in society to suffering, and death.”

Shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander said the “appalling” number of deaths was “a national scandal” and called on ministers to “get their heads out of the sand” to solve the crisis.

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