Delegates at UNISON’s energy conference today challenged energy and climate change secretary Ed Davey to do more to alleviate fuel poverty.
“Tens of thousands of people have already died of fuel poverty,” said young member Max Darby. “If you’re not going to re-nationalise energy, you have got to support the people who are most vulnerable.”
UNISON vice-president Wendy Nichols, who was chairing the conference, told the minister that many of those working for the union, “who contribute to the welfare of communities” but whose pay had been frozen for years, were among those struggling to pay bills – rather than those who had caused the economic crisis in the first place.
“Whoever wins the next election, this has to stop,” she said.
Mr Davey told delegates that the government was attempting to deal with fuel poverty, with initiatives including the warm house discount. And that his department was also preparing a fuel poverty strategy, that would involve the NHS and other bodies.
Answering other questions, he admitted that the government had no intention of regulating against off-shoring, and that the energy companies were adding to “public anger and distrust” through their lack of transparency and reluctance to divulge what they did with profits. They were also “slow” to pass on savings to the public when wholesale costs reduced.
He added that it was wrong that workers in the industry should receive the brunt of consumer anger.
The Liberal Democrat also took a swipe at Ed Miliband’s promise to freeze energy prices under a Labour government, as “irresponsible and reckless”, leading to likely job losses.
