Too Poor to Stay Warm Panorama

Millions of people in the UK can't afford to keep warm in winter.

Sometimes, behind these closed doors, no-one really,

really knows your tears and your frustrations.

Their struggles are usually hidden from view.

So that's £12 in two days!

Are you telling me this is right?

This isn't right.

We've spent the winter with those really feeling the cold.

If it was warm in the bedroom, I'd be in there now.

But I daren't go in, because I'd end up with pneumonia.

And we reveal the shocking death toll caused by

Britain's cold-homes scandal.

Last year, we estimate about 9,000 people

died as a result of living in a cold home.

9,000 people.

We all feel the cold when the temperature drops.

But for some people, winter weather can be a matter of life and death.

The elderly are most at risk.

In the UK, one in ten pensioners is officially in fuel poverty.

That means they can't afford to heat their homes.

Hi, Olive, I'm Datshi.

Pleased to meet you.

The Government says it spends £2 billion a year helping

pensioners like Olive Naismith pay their fuel bills.

Put your hands round the cup.

It's right warm.

'But Olive still can't keep warm on her state pension.'

I've got a cold most of the winter.

I'm fed up with them,

because I'm never free from it in the winter months, and I'm cold.

Me hands are cold all the time, and my feet.

I can't walk some days with my feet.

Olive can only afford to heat one room of her bungalow.

She's moved her bed into the living room so she can live

and sleep in a single room.

It's strange, me bed being in the lounge.

If it were warm in the bedroom, I'd be in there now.

That's that done.

But I daren't go in, because I'd end up with pneumonia.

SHE SNIFFS

This is the coldest weekend of the winter so far.

It's starting to go cold now.

I'm in the lounge with the fire on, and you go into the kitchen

or to the toilet, and you can feel how freezing it is.

It's going to be cold tonight, really cold.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

David Amess thought he had found a solution 16 years ago.

Have you seen the impact that fuel poverty can have on people?

Well, I have.

It's not only some families being in despair

because they can't afford to heat their properties.

But I had a constituent die of hypothermia.

In this day and age, for someone to die of fuel poverty is

totally unacceptable.

The Conservative MP campaigned for fuel poverty to be ended by law.

In the year 2000, Parliament agreed.

Fuel poverty would be stopped by 2016.

Year after year, governments have reassured me that fuel poverty

would be eradicated, and now we find ourselves in this situation

that we're coming up to the target date and it hasn't been met.

We don't want words, we want action.

According to the Government's own figures,

there are still more than five million people

in fuel poverty today.

The promise has been broken.

Nobody from the Government would be interviewed, but it says it's

requiring energy companies to...

And that...

..has already been spent...

The Government says the poorest in our society get...

That's little comfort for the millions

still feeling the cold today.

They can be left with some tough choices.

If I checked it every day, I'd panic.

So every couple of days, I check, realise how much I've used,

how much I've got left and then I kind of work my budget,

what I've got left then, around the electric and the gas.

Maria relies on temporary work and lives on a low income.

She regularly has to choose between her heating and her electricity.

The heating, it just goes off, and you'll go cold.

But everything will go in darkness if it's your electricity gone.

And you know then what you should have chosen...

and it's most definitely the electric!

SHE CHUCKLES

Not much in my fridge at the moment.

A bit of chilli that I made, and I've got some smoky bacon.

And sometimes it's a choice between eating and staying warm.

You'll go without, and then you'll just find yourself

going into a pattern where you're skipping.

And then you're skipping again.

Maria's far from alone.

An estimated 12 million people across the UK skip meals

to pay their energy bills.

Sometimes, behind these closed doors,

no-one really, really knows your tears and your frustrations.

The Government used to have a simple definition of fuel poverty.

If you needed to spend more than 10% of your income

heating your home, you were fuel poor.

But when it became clear the Government would miss

the 2016 target to end fuel poverty, they changed the definition.

This is the way the Government used to measure fuel poverty.

You can see it's going up and up.

The new measure is this one here,

and you can see that this measure doesn't change at all.

So the Government tells us fuel poverty hasn't increased at all.

But if they hadn't changed the definition,

the numbers would be shocking.

Unfortunately, today, approximately 20% of the population,

we estimate, are fuel poor - one in five households.

There are now far more people in fuel poverty than

when Parliament voted to eradicate it.

So instead of fuel poverty going down over that period, it's doubled.

The Government says the old measure...

.."who were reasonably well off".

The new measure was introduced following an...

It's...

..helps...

and gives a "more sophisticated understanding of fuel poverty".

But many single pensioners like Olive are no longer being counted.

Even though she is sleeping in her living room to keep warm,

she's not classified by the Government as fuel poor.

They ought to come and live with me for a week.

Tell them to come around, I've got a spare bed for them.

SHE CHUCKLES

Yeah.

Oh, dear.

Yes, they don't understand, love. There's a lot of struggling.

A hell of a lot.

Olive is a classic example of the problems with the new measure

the Government has introduced.

Despite the fact she has to spend a lot of her pension on heating

just that one room, she's no longer classified as fuel poor.

That seems really strange, that she's not being officially

-counted in the figures.

-She is clearly fuel poor,

but under the new statistical definition she's excluded.

Oh, look, there's some ducks.

-Ducky!

-Ducky!

It's not just pensioners who are struggling.

Ducky, here you go!

More than a million working families are officially in fuel poverty.

Look, that one's saying hello with its tail.

LAUGHTER

No matter how hard we work, you just feel like you're banging

your head against a brick wall, going round and round in circles.

Hayley works at the University of Brighton

and her partner, Dan, is a builder.

But they're still struggling to keep warm.

January is usually the worst

because the bills are due in, and then it gets cold,

and then you've got to try and put money on the gas and electric.

If I've got the money to put more on, then fine.

If I haven't, then it's just put extra layers on

and hope for the best.

I don't like it in the winter when it's freezing cold at night

and it feels like someone's rubbing ice on my nose.

-You wanted the Hello Kitty one?

-Yeah.

-Well, sorry,

you can't have it.

Oh, what, has it gone funny?

-It's all mouldy.

-Oh, yeah, I don't mind.

Like many people living in cold houses,

Hayley's family are battling damp.

It's a combination that's bad for their health.

The worst bit is in the corner above her bed where she sleeps.

I know it's not good for her.

Other than cleaning it, what else can I do?

I get really poorly sometimes and get a chesty cough.

The roof gets really damp and I start...

I'm up all night coughing and I don't like it.

I'd like to move to a house that doesn't have any

mould in the bedrooms or anywhere.

That would be better, really!

The cold and damp has also affected Hayley's son.

He's already had several chest infections

and had to be rushed to hospital for one of them.

I don't want my children to grow up thinking that this is normal,

to live in this kind of house, with everything, is normal.

And to be this ill is normal.

No child should grow up like this.

We all pay the price.

Fuel poverty is costing the NHS an estimated £1.3 billion a year.

It's all down to the link between cold homes and ill health.

People with asthma are particularly at risk.

We also see far higher rates of respiratory infections,

far higher rates of heart attacks and strokes.

So some really quite significant and serious impacts on physical health.

I'm just putting my oven on to...

get some heat in here.

It's absolutely freezing,

so this just gives me a bit of heat on me hands.

If the temperature in your home regularly

drops below 18 degrees, your health can suffer.

It's every couple of weeks I've been getting these chest infections.

My doctor has given me a new Ventolin spray

because I'm just... All the time, as soon as I get rid of one,

I seem to come down with another one.

And it can get far worse than chest infections and winter bugs.

New figures show how many people died last winter as a

direct consequence of cold homes.

Fuel poverty kills people.

And last year, we estimate about 9,000 people

died as a result of living in a cold home.

9,000 people.

That's almost 80 people dying every day.

And those lives could be saved.

Across Europe, countries with far colder winters than ours

have far fewer deaths.

If houses were properly warm, properly heated,

properly insulated,

we wouldn't see anything like these numbers of deaths.

It's entirely preventable.

If that was an epidemic of some disease, or doctors making mistakes,

there would quite rightly be people marching in the streets

and causing an outrage. But this is because of the cold.

It's a very quiet and hidden epidemic.

The Government insists it takes fuel poverty seriously.

It's invested...

..to help people who are...

And it's set up a committee to tackle the problem.

As a fuel poverty expert and a former Government advisor,

Nigel Farren was a strong candidate to sit on the panel.

But the interview didn't go as planned.

Very quickly, I realised that actually they didn't welcome me

being somewhat critical of current Government policy.

Really, what they were looking for was a yes person.

Nigel, with his years of experience working on the front line

of fuel poverty, didn't make it onto the Government's committee.

But Lawrence Slade did.

His organisation describes itself as "the voice of the energy industry".

You sit on the Government's newly announced

Fuel Poverty Committee.

Do you think it's too full of industry members like yourself?

No, because I'm not there representing the industry.

I'm there as someone who applied for the position

and went through normal Government appointment procedures.

I'm an independent person on that committee.

Lawrence isn't the only industry insider.

Half the committee members have direct links to the energy industry.

And we know why they were picked.

We've seen the application form.

It says the Government wants people with strong private sector or

business experience.

The application also states that

"expertise in fuel poverty is not required".

So you don't have to be an expert on fuel poverty

to sit on the Fuel Poverty Committee.

I really struggle with how Government can believe

that by appointing three people that come from the energy industry

they will receive impartial expert advice

on the problem of fuel poverty.

What clearly is needed is a group that actually holds

Government to account on this issue.

The Government says it wanted to appoint...

And the committee includes those...

It's not just the Government being blamed for cold homes.

Energy companies have also been criticised for failing to

pass on the reduction in oil and gas prices.

This month, the Competition and Markets Authority

accused energy companies

of being uncompetitive and of overcharging customers.

But the industry says the picture is improving.

We have significantly more suppliers in the market,

we have prices that are being driven down every week

as an effect of competition coming through.

So, actually, I think

the market is improving its measure of competition every week.

RINGING

Energy companies have also come under fire for pushing

customers onto expensive prepayment meters.

Right, so that's my meter telling me that my credit's really low

and it's under £1.

And it's making this ringing sound.

So I've now got 99 pence on it to last me until I can top up.

-Can I also put a fiver on the electricity card?

-£5, yeah?

Thank you.

'There are now almost eight million of these meters across the UK.'

-There you go.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

You have to top up the meter in advance.

So if you haven't got the cash, you can't stay warm.

I've used a prepayment meter since I was a kid.

And I know how much stress they can cause.

It was almost like a fifth person in our home with us.

And we became very aware of it draining very, very quickly

and what things used up more credit than others.

So it was a big added stress.

It's the anxiety of using the credit that's on the meter,

and it's also the anxiety of what you need to use energy-wise.

Do you prioritise your heating? Do you prioritise a hot meal?

Do you prioritise watching TV?

Most new meters go in to collect debt.

So when you put money on the meter,

not all of it will make it to your boiler.

WOMAN SNIFFS

Every Monday, I put £10 on.

You're not actually getting £10, you're only getting seven,

because three of it is going for the debt.

Like millions of others, Joanne Hayes was put onto

prepayment meters when she fell behind on her bills.

They're like a debt collector in the home.

You have to pay up or the lights go out.

When you run out, it runs out, there's no...no other way round it.

When you've got no electricity, you've got no electricity.

You're in total blackness.

To know that I had no gas and electricity

until the next time I could try and get me hands on some money,

it's just been living in hell with them two meters.

Absolutely living in hell.

Although Joanne's debt has now been cleared,

prepay meters are one of the most expensive ways to pay for energy.

So the poorest customers have to pay the most.

£1.63 - it's flashing "emergency available".

Come on, where's all me money gone?

So that's £12 in two days!

Are you telling me this is right? This isn't right.

This is not right.

SHE SNIFFLES

I just feel like getting a hammer and smashing the machine,

swear to God, I do.

If I could get someone to take it out me bloody house, I would,

I really would.

Do you recognise the stress

and worry that prepayment meters bring to people's lives?

I certainly recognise that for some households up and down the country

that, yes, it obviously brings a significant amount of stress.

Look, energy has to be paid in some way.

Prepayment meters are not a perfect solution, but it's a way of managing

people's debt and actually getting them back on their feet again.

-You need to move, you really need to move.

-We've got a warrant, love.

I don't care what you've got, you need to move.

If you are in debt, your energy company can force you

to have a prepayment meter.

Customers have started filming how they go about it.

It's the police.

Can you come to the window or open the door, please?

If you refuse to let your energy provider into your home,

they can bring the police.

If you do not communicate within the next five minutes,

they are going to put the door in.

This is causing me harm and anxiety!

It's supposed to be a last resort.

TOOL WHIRS

But more than half a million prepayment meters have been

forcibly installed in six years.

You and the police, or them,

had the choice to strong-arm me into having a meter fitted.

-I didn't want a meter fitted.

-It's the warrant.

The warrant is the boss, not us.

Energy firms can get a warrant to enter your home

and charge you hundreds of pounds for the cost.

CRASHING

Smashed their way in. They've smashed their way in.

Hello, sir.

Some think these warrants are handed out far too lightly.

They're approved in batches by magistrates,

usually with only the energy companies present.

I've just been in court and I'm really surprised.

I expected the energy companies to have to work a lot harder to

get their warrants.

All they did was they told the magistrate there were no

vulnerable customers, he had a quick look through the paperwork

and within five minutes he'd signed them all off, no questions asked.

And experts say this is happening all over the country.

In my mind, there's no doubt about it,

this warrant process is being abused.

It's almost a rubber-stamping exercise.

We hear magistrates flying through 10, 20 applications

in five, ten minutes.

That is just not good enough.

There are now so many of these warrants being issued,

one London council is helping local residents to challenge them.

We're seeing lots and lots of cases of energy companies trying to

install prepayment meters if people are getting into debt.

We feel it should be a last resort,

but often it's kind of pushed upon the resident.

Toby Morgan is going to meet a disabled woman

who is being threatened with prepayment meters she doesn't want.

It's an urgent case because British Gas

has already been to court and obtained a warrant.

The warrant's been issued - they can basically go

and install the prepayment meters if we don't get something done.

Susan Lulko's disability makes it difficult for her to

get around and can leave her bedbound for days at a time.

She's not blameless. Susan is in debt to British Gas

and they've been trying to contact her for 11 months.

Unable to reach her,

British Gas wrote to say they're applying for a warrant.

I opened the letter.

It said, "We're going to obtain a warrant to enter your premises

"and we will be fitting..."

Not, "We will consider..."

"We will be fitting prepayment meters."

Susan then phoned British Gas and told them

about her mobility problems.

But they went to court for the warrant anyway.

Energy companies are only supposed to install meters

if they're safe and practical to use.

-Hello, is that Susan?

-Yes...

-Hi there...

British Gas say it's not clear

whether or not that would have been the case.

The thought of them coming in, forcing my door

and putting these meters in that I didn't want, that I couldn't use...

They might as well have just cut off the gas and electric.

The regulator, Ofgem, says energy companies aren't allowed to install

meters if a customer's disability makes topping up difficult.

So you wouldn't be able to reach this anyway, would you?

Ofgem says companies should check before applying for a warrant.

British Gas say Susan's 11-month silence made that difficult.

PHONE RINGS

-RECORDED MESSAGE:

-Helpline at British Gas...

My name is Toby Morgan, I'm calling up from Islington Council,

on behalf of a resident who I'm with at the moment.

When Toby rings British Gas, they don't know we're recording

the call and they make a crucial admission.

Susan's mobility problems are marked on their records.

She's got a disability, hopefully you've got that noted down...

-ON PHONE:

-We've just got on there that it's poor mobility...

Poor mobility, yeah.

-ON PHONE:

-Yeah, we've got that down on there.

So British Gas went to court even though

they knew meters might not be appropriate for Susan.

First and foremost,

we kind of want the whole warrant process to be sort of halted.

Where the meters are located, as well,

it's not going to be possible for her to use them like that.

Could you just confirm you've put a hold on the legal action stuff?

British Gas agrees to drop the warrant

and a repayment plan is put in place.

They won't go ahead with the whole warrant process.

And they're not going to come round on the fifth

and knock on your door and install the prepayment meters.

So that's... That's good news anyway.

-Yeah, very good news.

-Yeah.

British Gas denies breaking the rules.

They say they would have stopped the installation

if it wasn't...

..to use.

They say the case highlights the importance of...

And they only seek a warrant...

It's all a long way from what the Government promised 16 years ago.

Fuel poverty has been redefined, while millions are on expensive

prepayment meters and thousands are dying from the cold.

I think it should be an issue

that's a far higher priority for governments.

9,000 people dying of the cold last winter - that's not acceptable.

Those at risk can only dream of a warmer future...

If I can get up from here and walk there,

and not go like that - "Oh, it's freezing..."

Just to walk out...

Yeah, it's luxury. I'd like some of it.

..while some know they will be trapped in fuel poverty

for the rest of their lives...

Come on, Sam.

..even if they no longer count in the official figures.

Well, there's no way out of this, is there?

It's like fighting a hopeless battle.

Come on, love, eh?

Go and have a little wander round.

And it'll be the same next year...