Age UK responds to new Prime Minister’s energy price guarantee

Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK: "Our initial reaction is that we recognise this is an enormous package of financial support for consumers from the Government, and an extremely welcome one as a result, but the question for Age UK is whether it targets enough financial help towards the pensioners we worry about the most: those with only a small amount of money coming in and who are totally dependent on the State Pension and means-tested benefits, as well as those with especially high costs, due to disability and ill health, or living in homes which are very costly to heat.

"We have to remember that energy prices will still be rising to a level that would have previously been unthinkable. Older people have told us how incredibly worried they are about their bills as they stand and are already cutting down as much as they can. Even with this welcome intervention many more older people seem likely to be plunged into fuel poverty, and this makes it all the more important that the Government presses ahead with reinstating the triple lock from April 2023."

“We welcome the Government’s recognition of the need to ensure that older people who use oil to heat their homes, not to mention the entire population of Northern Ireland, also receive the same level of support and we look forward to hearing more detail about mechanisms when it is available.

“As a national charity with some 125 local Age UKs operating in communities up and down the country, independent charities in their own right, we are extremely relieved that the Government will be directing substantial financial support to the voluntary sector over the autumn and winter. We have been hugely concerned that without it, many local charities and community groups would struggle to survive, just at the time when older people are most in need of their help.”

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