Rising Energy Costs: To Heat or Eat?
As has been well documented recently, household energy prices are on the rise, and it is set to have a significant and disproportionate impact on those on lower incomes. In January 2022, 66% of adults in Britain reported that their cost of living had increased, and 79% of those adults cited higher gas and electricity bills as a cause.
As with the rising cost of food, which we spoke about in our last blog, the hike in energy costs are going to affect lower income households, as they spend higher proportions of their income on utility bills, and are already more likely to be in fuel poverty. Energy prices are set to rise further still in April this year by at least £693 for up to 22 million customers due to the 54% increase to the energy price cap.
And now with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both food and fuel prices look set to rise further still. One reason for this is that one of the major gas pipelines runs between Russia and Europe, and it has been halted amidst the chaos of the invasion.
Russia is also one of Europe’s main suppliers of key food ingredients like wheat, so any shortage is likely to see a sharp rise in prices in our supermarkets.
People have already had to start making tough choices between heating their homes or eating, and without additional help from food banks, food surplus projects, and other similar initiatives, more families would have had to have made the same tough choices.
A survey recently conducted for BBC 5 Live suggested that at least 29% of adults in the UK had skipped meals in the previous six months just to save money, and more than 50% had had the heating on less this winter.
Citizens Advice have also recently issued a “red alert” over rising costs, releasing figures that confirm that referrals to food banks and advice on emergency one-off grants are at their highest levels on record, standing at 24,000 people in January 2022.
Dame Clare Moriarty, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice has said, “April’s price hikes haven’t yet hit and already people are turning to our services in record numbers.
“Frontline advisers are hearing desperate stories of families living in just one room to keep warm, people turning off their fridges to save money and other relying on hot water bottles instead of heating, due to fears about mounting bills.”
With some food banks seeing 200% increases in the number of users, community initiatives are going to be relying on the good will of their volunteers and donors to help keep food on the table of thousands, if not millions of people for the foreseeable future.
And although it shouldn’t be necessary in a country like the UK, one of the biggest economies in the world, Hartlepool Food Network and the other fantastic groups operating within our town, will continue to work hard to support our members and our community with food for those who need it in these tough times.
