The Guardian view on a fuel poverty emergency: inaction will not do
Adding to existing worries about the cost of living, the implications of the latest report from the Institute of Health Equity are deeply alarming. Its author, Prof Michael Marmot, spells out the links between rising fuel poverty and various forms of illness, and warns that the threat is greatest for those who are already least well-off. By January next year, 55% of UK households, or 15 million, are expected to be fuel-poor (though a change in the way this is officially defined in England, and differences with Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, make comparisons difficult).
Warnings of surging demand at food banks, and a backdrop of acute concern about the growing gap between incomes and prices, make the picture drawn by the report all the bleaker. It predicts worsening respiratory and mental health for children in affected homes, and highlights the increased circulation of viruses and infections, including bronchiolitis, associated with colder temperatures. The contribution of damp and mould to asthma is also pointed out. So are links between poverty, cold, poor housing and mental illness.
The risks are not limited to babies and children, although the existence of a window of opportunity in childhood for optimal maturation of the lungs makes the impact on them particularly severe. Respiratory illnesses and asthma affect adults too, and circulatory problems can be worsened by cold. The existing correlation between fuel poverty and other forms of deprivation is also expected to be magnified, since poorer families will be hardest hit by price rises. Another new report, from the Resolution Foundation thinktank, has described the expected fall in living standards as more extreme than that suffered during the second world
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