The UK government must urgently bring forward billions of pounds in pledged spending on insulation and heat pumps, and reinstate the universal credit uplift to help poor households cope with soaring energy and food prices, civil society groups have told ministers.
Vulnerable households are already facing stark choices between heating and eating, with hardship set to become even worse before next winter as rises in the cost of living bite, fuelled by the war in Ukraine.
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Save the Children and Age UK are among 33 civil society groups that have written to the prime minister, Boris Johnson, the chancellor of the exchequer, Rishi Sunak, and the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, to call for £3.6bn for insulation grants to all households, and an extra £4bn by 2025 to install heat pumps in place of gas boilers.
The letter, seen by the Guardian, also called for benefits to be increased in line with April’s inflation rate, rather than the lower 3.1% planned, and for the £20 uplift in universal credit that was part of the Covid-19 response to be…
