WARM FRONT GRANT STILL LEAVING PEOPLE OUT IN THE COLD

12.07.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 1st 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• Since 2003 106,810 households have withdrawn from the Warm Front scheme, with one in six of all applicants pulling out in 2008.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.

• In 2007/08, 1,469 households in Stockport applied for a Warm Front Grant, with 343 households (one in four) being forced to pay a top-up. In Greater Manchester, 21,526 households applied for a Warm Front Grant, with 5,008 households (one in four) being forced to pay a top-up. Across the North West, 60,203 households applied for a Warm Front Grant, with 12,497 households (one in five) being forced to pay a top-up.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat MP Andrew Stunell 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, and many of those people simply don't have the money to pay for the work themselves, which is why they apply for a grant in the first place.

"The increase in the grant is too little, too late, and will be of little comfort to the thousands who have already had 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.

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

ENDS