§ Lord TAYLOR of MANSFIELDasked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their policy on the disconnection of old age pensioners from their fuel supply.
§ Lord LOVELL-DAVISThe Government recognised last summer that many of the poorer consumers would face serious problems in adjusting their budgets to cope with the very much higher fuel bills that would reach them this winter. My right honourable friend discussed this problem with the electricity and gas supply industries then, and they have been most helpful and sensitive in their handling of this matter. As noble Lords will know the Boards have made a number of changes in their methods of working, especially with regard to disconnections, to identify hardship cases for handling by the Social Services from those other cases where payment, though difficult, does not constitute hardship. In particular they have worked out arrangements for avoiding disconnections of supplementary benefit claimants, and there have been discussions with the citizens advice bureaux about advice to those in difficulties. The House will wish to express appreciation for the initiatives which the industries and the welfare agencies have taken in these matters.
The recent cold spell has, however, prompted special concern about the problems of one group in particular—the older people who are so vulnerable to extreme cold, but who might be led by a combination of anxiety and a sense of public responsibility into undue economies which might hazard their health or life. My right honourable friend has recently discussed these problems with the industries again. He finds that the number of households consisting solely of pensioners who have been disconnected by either industry in the whole of England and Wales is tiny. However, in addition there are very many old people who are worried about their ability to pay promptly, and fear disconnection. Clearly in the long run fuel bills must be paid by one means or another. But to relieve one of the anxieties of the aged 349WA for the time being he has asked the industries to suspend between now and the beginning of June the disconnections of households which can show that all the members in receipt of income are pensioners over retirement pensionable age. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has asked the Scottish Electricity Boards to make similar arrangements.
This will give the industries and the pensioners an opportunity to work out practicable methods of payment. At the same time, he has asked me to undertake an informal review of the payment and collection arrangements in conjunction with the gas and electricity industries and others and to report on any further procedures which may be desirable, including methods of making the available facilities more widely known and used. This review and the submissions made in the course of it, which my right honourable friend intends to make public, will be complementary to 350WA the report which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection has requested the National Consumer Council to make on the impact of fuel costs on the budgets of low income households.
These arrangements, within a very limited scope, will not solve the hardship problems of consumers in other groups, but I am confident that the public at large will recognise the special case for relieving old people of some of their problems and anxieties and that the industries and the Social Services will continue to deal sympathetically and sensitively with the problems of all consumers. These new arrangements which my right honourable friend has asked the Boards to introduce are designed to help pensioners and give them a little extra time to adjust to the present difficult situation.
House adjourned at twenty-six minutes before five o'clock