WARM FRONT GRANT STILL LEAVING PEOPLE OUT IN THE COLD

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 16th Jun 2009

Over 100,000 households have pulled out of the Warm Front scheme in the last five years, with a third of applicants now having to pay a top-up according to figures highlighted by the Liberal Democrats.

The figures, contained in answers to Parliamentary Questions show that:

 Since 2003 106,810 households have withdrawn from the Warm Front scheme, with one in six of all applicants pulling out in 2008.

 The number of people having to pay a top-up has risen from 1 in 10 of all applicants in 2005/06 to 1 in 4 in 2007/08. Figures for the first six months of 2007/08 show the proportion rising to 1 in 3.

 60% of those having to pay a top-up are over 60.

Commenting, Solihull's MP, Lorely Burt said:

"It is unacceptable that many people applying for a Warm Front Grant are forced to fork out money for top-up payments, or drop out of the scheme completely.

"Huge rises in gas and electricity prices last year pushed millions of elderly and vulnerable people into fuel poverty. Many of those people simply don't have the money to pay for the work themselves, which is why they applied for a grant in the first place.

"The increase in the grant is too little, too late, and will be of small comfort to the thousands who have already been obliged to spend their own money on this scheme.

"The government still hasn't sorted out who should be eligible for the grant. More than half of the households in fuel poverty don't qualify for help from this scheme, and three quarters of those who do qualify are above the level of the Government's own fuel poverty definition.

"Government must force the energy companies to invest much more of their £9bn cash windfall on insulating homes to keep heating bills down for those who can least afford them. The current system is leaving thousands of people out in the cold."