Campaigners call for government and energy suppliers to end fuel poverty - 17/03/2010
A consortium of leading campaign groups have called for more to be done to promote cheap energy and end fuel poverty.
The group, including the Centre for Sustainable Energy, Consumer Focus and Age Concern, has drawn up a charter calling for the government to make all fuel poor homes more energy efficient.
According to the collective, which also includes Help the Aged and the Child Poverty Action Group, energy suppliers should be obliged to provide "social price discounts" to low income consumers, many of whom put their health at risk by cutting back on their heating.
Jonathan Stearn, energy expert at Consumer Focus, said: "It should be a right, not a privilege, for everybody to have a warm, dry home that they can afford to heat.
"The main political parties have all exchanged rhetoric on the importance of ending fuel poverty but what we need now is concerted action."
According to Consumer Focus, a home is considered fuel poor when it spends ten per cent or more of its income on energy bills.
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