✊Click out our #WarmUp This Winter Action Pack for all the resources you need to take part on 1st and 2nd December.
🍄Go here to Register your Warm Up (or use the form below if you have an Action Network login)
📍Go here or see the map below to find your nearest local action.
🔥Use our guide on How to Organise a Warm Up.
💻 Email [email protected] to be connected with your local organisers!
#BanForcedPPMs #EnergyForAll #ColdHomesKill #EndWinterDeaths
As temperatures begin to drop this Autumn, our blood boils at facing another winter with the political choice of fuel poverty.
Both main political parties seem to accept that sky-high energy bills are the new reality.
Help us to fight this government’s culture war against the just and green transition we all need. A green new deal that guarantees heat and light to everyone.
Order free #EnergyForAll stickers to put up in your local area. QR codes will guide more people to our events and trainings.
Register for training to organise or take part in #WarmUp protests all around the country in December. See the growing list of actions below!
Join our team and look out for announcements of more events and actions.
Ofgem are coming under pressure to end the unfair standing charge on energy bills, which now stands at £25 a month before we have used a single watt of energy.
Ofgem has agreed to think about it a bit more, and make an announcement “within weeks”, but they are not seeking advice from fuel poverty organisations.
Please use this form to send a letter to the CEO Jonathan Brearley and ask your MP to do the same, so Ofgem can be in no doubt that it’s time to get rid of the standing charge.
Thanks for taking action!
On July 4th, around 30 MPs from parties including Conservatives, Labour, SNP and Liberal Democrats attended our Energy For All Manifesto Parliamentary Launch.
12 new MPs signed the Manifesto there with more doing so since, bringing our total to over 25 MPs! Others have agreed to follow ups or meetings about elements of Energy For All or other fuel poverty issues we campaign on.
This event marked a huge first step towards broadening parliamentary support for an Energy Pricing Revolution. On the road to next year’s General Election, we will continue to lobby MPs and pressure parties to adopt these crucial measures to bring down bills for good.
On the eve of our parliamentary launch, we surpassed 200 signatures on the Manifesto. War on Want is the latest organisation to add it’s name to our list of supporters and watch 350.org‘s explainer video on why we need #EnergyForAll.
You can help build support for this demand at a grassroots level by taking a motion to your trade union branch.
Help us take our campaign to the next level. Donate now!
On July 4th, we’re taking our #EnergyForAll Manifesto to Parliament.
We need your help to ensure that MPs of all parties hear about our launch event and the demand for Energy For All!
Ask your MP to attend our Manifesto launch and sign in support of our demand for a cheaper, greener and fairer energy pricing system! Click here.
Based in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland?
You can also write to your devolved parliamentary representatives to ask them to add their name in support of the Manifesto! Click here.
Our Manifesto has been signed by over 150 organisations, community groups, businesses and elected officials so far.
Let’s keep that growing to build as much pressure as possible on MPs and parties to support. Take the Manifesto to your local community group, councillor’s surgery or union branch using our model motion and sign here.
You can read the full content of our Manifesto and view our full list of supporters at energyforall.org.uk.
On 23rd March, we launched a Manifesto for Energy For All. The Manifesto promises an Energy Pricing Revolution for a cheaper, greener and fairer energy pricing system to meet everyone’s needs.
Organisations, community groups, trade unions and more can sign to support. And as individuals you can email your MP asking them to sign!
See the list of groups that have signed so far. And watch the launch event with speakers including Ruth London, John McDonnell MP, Caroline Lucas MP, Clive Lewis MP, Paula Peters, Ian Hodson and Indigo Rumbelow.
Join us this Thursday 23rd March 6.30 – 7.45pm for the online launch of our Manifesto!
Speakers to include Clive Lewis MP, Caroline Lucas MP, Anne McLaughlin MP and John McDonnell MP. Alongside Ian Hodson of Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, Mia Watanabe from the Warm This Winter Coalition, Paula Peters from DPAC, Indigo Rumbelow of Just Stop Oil and others.
We call on organisations, trade and tenants unions, community and faith groups, MPs, local authorities and distinguished individuals to sign in support of our Manifesto.
Email your MP asking them to do so now!
Join with groups including:
On January 21 and 22, 2023, Fuel Poverty Action and its supporters held Warm-Ups and vigils in towns and cities across the UK. The days were part of a week of action by Fuel Poverty Action and allied groups calling on the government to ban the forced installation of prepayment meters, #BanForcedPPMs, assist people in vulnerable situations to be returned to credit meters and demand #EnergyForAll. Warm-ups, vigils and demonstrations were held in Edinburgh, Liverpool, Exeter, London, Leicester, Cambridge and Birmingham. On Sunday January 22, under significant pressure, Grant Shapps issued a letter to energy providers demanding they voluntarily stop the forcible installation of prepayment meters. While we celebrate this significant win on our demand to #BanForcedPPMs, we continue to campaign for the government to do more. This weekend of actions followed numerous vigils demanding no more deaths from fuel poverty, when, on January 19, the Office for National Statistics announced 13,500 excess winter deaths last year.
Kicking off actions on January 21, protestors in Edinburgh entered and warmed up in the foyer of the Scottish Parliament building at around 10.30am, demanding the Scottish Government join the Labour Party and other notable institutions in pressuring the UK Government to implement a ban on forced switching to prepayment meters. This came after protestors interrupted First Minister’s Questions at the Scottish Parliament earlier this week, calling on Nicola Sturgeon to take this stance.
Moving south of the country, around 12pm, campaigners in Liverpool staged a warm-up at the Museum of Liverpool wrapped up warm and singing their original campaign song “Your Heating Chart” to the tune of “Your Cheating Heart”. At the same time, locals in Exeter stood outside an EDF call centre, one of the big six energy suppliers in the UK, with placards saying ‘Ban Forced Prepayment Meters’, ‘Energy For All’ and ‘Cold Homes Kill’.
Two warm-ups also took place in London. In central London, protestors and locals warmed up at the John Lewis department store on Oxford Street in the department store’s luxury sofas and armchairs and holding up a very large Energy For All banner. They then moved to warm-up in the iconic building of Liberty London which they peacefully left after being confronted by the store’s security.
Meanwhile, in Croydon, south London, members and supporters of the campaign group Fossil Free London warmed-up in a branch of Barclays Bank to protest against their continued funding of oil and gas, which is pushing up bills and driving climate breakdown, in solidarity with people who can’t heat their homes as a result of soaring bills.
Other demonstrations and vigils were also held in Leicester, Cambridge and Birmingham. In Leicester, a small group of locals held a vigil outside Leicester Town Hall, standing in the freezing cold to commemorate the lives lost to cold homes. In Cambridge, a demonstration was held at a Shell garage on Newnham Road with demonstrators highlighting fuel poverty and the role that energy companies play in rising energy bills. The next day, protestors and locals staged a warm-up in Birmingham.
Warm-ups, vigils and other actions gained traction in national news outlets with Fuel Poverty Action campaigners and supporters speaking multiple times on BBC news, Sky news and LBC radio to name a few.
This tide of pressure had clear results. On Sunday, we were greeted with a significant win demonstrating the power of collective action, when Grant Shapps demanded a voluntary ban on the forced installation of prepayment meters from energy companies. While we welcome and celebrate our achievement leading the government’s response, we also believe further action needs to be taken on prepayment meters and to ensure that everyone has access to the basic necessities of heating, cooking and lighting.
As energy companies have demonstrated they cannot be trusted to regulate themselves after unscrupulously requesting over 500,000 warrants to install prepayment meters, we demand the government #BanForcedPPMs for good and assists customers to be returned to credit mode. Moreover, we continue to demand Energy For All, a universal, free amount of energy to cover people’s necessities like heating, lighting and cooking – paid for by an end to all public money subsidising fossil fuels, a more effective windfall tax on energy companies and higher tariffs on luxury household energy use, as well as a national retrofitting scheme to bring housing up to adequate energy efficiency standards.
At this critical juncture, please keep up the pressure by calling or emailing Grant Shapps’s office using our template guide and sign-up to the #EnergyForAll campaign to demand an energy system that meets everyone’s basic needs.
The fight continues.
Between Thursday 19th – Sunday 22nd January, campaigners and locals came together in towns and cities across the UK to demand the UK Government #BanForcedPPMs and implement #EnergyForAll.
On the 19th, ONS released the excess winter deaths figures for 2021/22. We joined the National Pensioner’s Convention and others, holding our traditional vigil in Westminster to mark the date. Speeches were given by Lord Prem Sikka, John McDonnell MP, Jan Shortt (NPC General Secretary), Paula Peters (DPAC) and our own Ruth London. Following a minute’s silence, participants marched to Downing Street and laid a coffin at the gate.
On the same date, a similar vigil took place at Cardiff Central Square. Protesters also interrupted First Minister’s Questions in Edinburgh, challenging Nicola Sturgeon on prepayment meters.
On Saturday 21st, Warm-Ups organised by FPA, Don’t Pay and Fossil Free London took place at the Scottish Parliament, an EDF Call Centre in Exeter, the Museum of Liverpool, a Barclays Bank and department stores including John Lewis at Oxford Circus and Liberty of London.
Further demonstrations took place at Leicester Town Hall, a Shell garage in Cambridge and outside Octopus Energy Sales Hub in Birmingham!
We have succeeded in forcing the government to act! During the days of action, a crackdown was announced on energy companies forcing people onto prepayment meters. While we celebrate this success and reflect on the power of our collective action, we will continue to push the government to go further and implement an outright ban!
#BanForcedPPMs #EnergyForAll #ColdHomesKill #EndWinterDeaths
Fuel Poverty Action gathered campaigners and parliamentarians outside the Houses of Parliament on January 19, 2023, to hold a vigil demanding no more deaths from fuel poverty. On this day the Office for National Statistics announced the number of excess winter deaths last year.
On January 19, 2023, The Office for National Statistics announced 13,500 excess winter deaths in the year 2021/2022. In their analysis of the data, End the Fuel Poverty coalition found 2,731 of these were attributable to cold and damp homes with over 1000 lives being lost in December 2022 only.
Fuel Poverty Action, National Pensioner’s Convention, Don’t Pay and other groups, held a minute’s silence in memory of these deaths as Big Ben chimed for midday. Speakers including Lord Prem Sikka, John MCDonnell MP, and leaders of NPC, FPA, Disabled People Against Cuts and the End Fuel Poverty Coalition addressed the vigil leading up to the one minute’s silence.
Pall-bearers dressed in black then slow-marched with a coffin bearing the latest excess deaths figure to Downing Street to hand in a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak calling for immediate action to end this annual scandal.
Several similar events are taking place across the UK this week with campaigners demanding the government ban forced switching of customers to prepayment meters (PPMs) by energy companies.
Since the UK came out of the COVID-19 lockdown, energy companies have secured nearly 500,000 court warrants to install prepayment meters in the homes of people in debt. Research by Warm This Winter produced figures from YouGov revealing that 64% of PPM customers are classed as ‘vulnerable’ with over half having disabilities or health conditions. Prepayment meter customers could pay in excess of £200 more for their energy this winter.
The government has come under increasing pressure to act since Citizens Advice recently revealed that over 3 million people were disconnected due to running out of credit in 2022, more than in the past 10 years combined. The Business Minister, Grant Shapps, has done nothing to ban the forcible installation of prepayment meters beyond expressing ‘concern’.
We are calling for these meters to be removed from homes where they have already been installed – in defiance of suppliers licence conditions – when they are not safe or practical for the residents.
We also continue to demand that our current energy pricing system be replaced with ‘Energy For All’; a universal, free amount of energy to cover people’s necessities like heating, lighting and cooking. This would be paid for by ending all public money going towards fossil fuel subsidies, windfall taxes on energy company profits and implementing higher tariffs on excessive, luxury energy use.
For more information on Energy For All contact [email protected].
