Caithness CWS - FPB - September 2006 - Council Joins Energy Price Campaign

25 September 06
Highland Council Joins Energy Price Campaign
Highland Councillors are backing a campaign to highlight the impact on low income households of recent price increase introduced by power companies.

At a special meeting in Gairloch, the Council unanimously agreed to support the Scottish Local Government Forum Against Poverty in lobbying the UK Government in Westminster.

In raising the issue, Councillor Bill Fulton, the Council's representative on the Forum, highlighted that 600,000 households in Scotland face an average 57% increase this year. Since 2003, gas prices had increased by 107.5% and electricity prices by 62.1%.

Councillor Fulton said: "There is real concern in the Highlands at the impact large energy increases are having on many households. These increases are disproportionately affecting low income consumers and fuel-poor households driving more and more people into poverty."

The Council agreed to:

Support the initiative taken by Energywatch and other consumer organisations who have launched a campaign to stop penalising the poor;
Support the call on all energy suppliers to reduce prepayment meter tariffs and bring them into line with prices paid by quarterly bill payees;
Call on the UK Government to ensure that the large energy price increases are seriously taken account of when the Government begins its benefit uprating process later in the year.