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I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change.DECC is committed to helping people, especially low-income vulnerable households, heat their homes more affordably.Since 2000, the Warm Front scheme has assisted 2.3 million households, providing energy efficient heating and insulation measures to households vulnerable to fuel poverty. We expect the scheme to assist a further 90,000 households between April 2011 and March 2013. In addition, the Government have introduced the Warm Home Discount scheme which requires the six largest energy companies to provide discounts on energy bills. The scheme is worth up to £1.1 billion and will run from April 2011 to March 2015, helping around two million low income and vulnerable households per year.The Government also provides winter fuel payments to pensioner households and cold weather payments to eligible households during periods of cold weather. This winter, Government have made 5,166,900 cold weather payments totalling £129,172,500. |