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Britain faces a “humanitarian crisis” this winter when the difficult choices forced upon low-income households by soaring energy bills could cause serious physical and mental illness, a healthcare lobby group said on Friday.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resisted calls to provide more support to households struggling with higher bills, insisting his government will leave major fiscal decisions to the next prime minister who takes office in early September.
“The country is facing a humanitarian crisis,” said Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents organizations across the healthcare sector.
“Many people could face the awful choice between skipping meals to heat their homes and having to live in cold, damp and very unpleasant conditions,” Taylor said in a statement.
The situation could cause outbreaks of respiratory conditions, mental illness, worsen children’s life chances and add to pressure on the already stretched state-run National Health Service (NHS), he added.
A spokesperson at Britain’s health department said the government was already helping households through a 37-billion-pound ($44 billion) cost-of-living support package announced in May and was also working to increase NHS capacity
Britain’s average annual household energy bills — covering both gas and electricity — look set to double again to more than 4,000 pounds ($4,766) by January, exacerbating inflation which already topped 10% in July.
Facing growing pressure, Johnson’s government said last week it was working on a cost-of-living support package for the next prime minister to consider, while the opposition Labour Party wants to recall parliament to freeze energy bills.
The NHS Confederation said it was concerned that “fuel poverty”, in the absence of further government support, would cause more deaths associated with cold homes, which are currently estimated at around 10,000 a year.
Strikes Cripple London
London’s transport network ground to a halt on Friday as train and bus workers held strikes over pay and conditions, the latest in a summer of labour market disputes as double-digit inflation eats into wages.
All London Underground and Overground train lines were suspended or part suspended and dozens
of bus routes in the west of the city were disrupted, Transport for London (TfL) said.
Tens of thousands of workers from the wider national rail network walked out on Thursday and will do so again on Saturday.
Commuters across the country have already endured disruption from rail strikes this year, organized by unions demanding pay and conditions for their members that better reflect the soaring cost of living caused by energy price-driven inflation.
Data showed inflation at 10.1% in July, the highest since February 1982, as rising energy costs resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hit consumers directly through their household bills, and indirectly through rising food prices.
That has led to a standoff between firms, who say rising costs and falling demand limit their room to negotiate, unions who say their workers cannot afford to live and the government, which is worried that big wage increases may fuel inflation.
“We don’t want to be in a 1970s vicious circle where you end up with salaries increasing, inflation increasing and so on and so forth. You never get out of this,” Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told the BBC.
The RMT said the underground strike was in response to a lack of assurances about jobs and pensions from TfL. In a letter to Shapps, the union accused him of waging ideological war against rail workers.
TfL is itself in prolonged negotiations with the government after the expiration of an emergency state funding deal, in part necessitated by a post-pandemic fall in passengers.
Workers in other British industries are also planning future strikes or moving towards industrial action. These include port workers, lawyers, teachers, nurses, firefighters, and waste collection, airport and postal staff.
