Fuel Poverty - Brockley event to call Joan Ruddock to account

Fuel Poverty- St Andrews Church Brockley

I recently spoke at an event organised by the Fuel Poverty Coalition, in St Andrews Church on the corner of Brockley Road and Wickham road. There were representatives from the Green, the Lib Dems, Age Concern and Help the Aged, Friends of the Earth and the Women’s Institute. Labour’s Joan Ruddock, our local MP but also the parties Minister for Climate Change didn’t bother to turn up. I spoke about the impact Fuel Poverty has on local Lewisham residents and the plans the Conservatives have to tackle the issue. You can see my speech by Following the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MgiTVSTFFIon YouTube

I wanted to speak at the event to call on our local MP Joan Ruddock and her labour government to take some real action and show some commitment to the promise they made in their FP strategy in 2000 and to their election manifesto pledges in 2001 and 2005. They set legally binding targets saying they would eradicate fuel poverty for vulnerable households by 2010.  They couldn’t be further away from that promise.

FP risen significantly since 2000 and according to the government is currently 3.5million. However expects think the government have grossly underestimated the number of people in FP as they use statistics are two years out of date and don’t take into account the huge rises in energy bills.

They clearly are not taking issue seriously and don’t have proper or effective plans in place. How can the NHS and Social services develop proper and effective plans if they do not know how many people they need to support.

Experts say we’re looking at around 5.2 million and rising, half will be pensioners and around 20-50,000 will die each winter. There are an estimated 3000 people in FP in Lewisham alone and we’re looking at around 800 excess winter deaths locally. This information horrifies me, I am fortunate enough to still have grandparents, I’ve also been working with Age Concern in London and one thing I know is that older people worry a lot, partly because they spend time at home alone. To think that a member of my family might spend half (or more) of the year sitting in the cold worrying about 100 – 200 pound makes me feel so angry. To think that people die because of the cold makes really makes me question what sort of developed country I’m living in.

The Conservative party believe it is  unfair the poorest should pay more. Here are some of the things the party has pledged to do:

Pre-pay meters

Make it illegal for companies to charge unfair price premiums on pre-payment meter

Predominantly the poorest that choose this option of payment - penalised  often paying over £300 pounds a year more -energy consumers that pay up front!

Social Tariffs

We will require energy companies to offer social tariffs to vulnerable household

Clear energy bills – to help people get the best deal

Reform Post Office Card Accounts

Smart readers in every household – so people know how much they are spending and how much bills will be.

Referral Competition commission

To find out more about our energy and climate change policies visit our website via this link

http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Energy.aspx

Gemma Townsend PPC Lewisham Deptford