25% face fuel poverty

According to a recent report around one in every four households in the UK are facing fuel poverty, as rising energy bills continue to add to the financial strain that most households are already feeling. The report indicates that by the end of 2009 around 5.7 million households in the UK could be facing fuel poverty.

Fuel poverty is where 10% or more of the total household income is spent on energy bills. Energy suppliers have already increased the cost of energy usage twice this year, and with all of the other increases in bills and living costs this has left many households struggling to make ends meet in terms of their finances.

Some officials have said that there is an energy crisis underway, and one official stated: “The government needs to grasp the nettle and take strong and radical action to protect the nation’s energy customers. Britain is virtually unique in Europe in that our energy suppliers have been privatised and deregulated. The promise at the time of deregulation was that prices would fall. This has palpably not happened. It is time for ministers to regulate the market.”

Ed Matthew, Head of UK Climate at Friends of the Earth, added: “We have set out exactly what needs to be done to sort out this national disaster – ministers must now listen and take action now to fulfil all our recommendations.”