The £400 energy credit will be paid in 6 instalments Oct-Mar

[GiantKitten]

Saw this on the ITV news page earlier.
I had assumed the whole £400 would be credited in October, but this probably makes more sense.

I was also expecting the whole thing to be applied in October as well! The whole thing sort of feels like a drop in the ocean now.

Its meaningless, it was conceived before the new price hikes.

Pensioners are getting a lot more with the increase in winter fuel payment too. i guess the rest of us just have to go cold.

Just so crazy to me that lots of families are just expected to find extra hundreds of pounds each month! So what happens when there’s no room to find more money? Wow!

I guess we just have to hope for a mild winter. I work for a charity helping older people and a lot are panicking already and trying to maximise their income further. A lot of people have a lot of spare income and will cope or they will just cut back on luxury items. Others will really struggle. I imagine we might see some older people temporarily moving in with family over the winter or single pensioners moving in with friends if they can maybe to reduce costs. There's a lot of older people stuck in large properties that are costly to heat - my dad is one rattling around on his own in a large four bedroomed semi. It might encourage some pensioners to consider downsizing.

It's not fair that people in Scotland, especially the North of Scotland, are treated the same as people in the south. Its a lot colder up here, thats just a fact. People need to put the heating on before people in the south feel it nippy. Yet there's no concession made. Older or vulnerable people up here have it worse in winter.

Friend and I were saying something similar the other day.

We live near the south coast,and we haven't had a proper frost for at least the last 2 winters. I couldn't tell you the last time I heard someone scraping frost off their car. And it's at least 10 years since we had snow that settled.

Heating costs must take a significantly bigger proportion of your income in the north.

Im regularly defrosting the car in the mornings in winter and we're Glasgow, not Inverness. And the damp weather makes it colder.

Imagine how hard it would be to try to work out payments based on regional temperature differences. People on some benefits already get extra payments when the temperature drops below a certain point for a number of days. This happens every winter so I assume those payments will continue this winter.

@LakieLady I didn't think anywhere escaped the extreme cold in 2018. I am also near the south coast and it was -7 degrees. Our pipes froze.

I dont think it would be impossible @Babyroobs. There's no acknowledgement at all just now, unless the temperature drops to a certain level for a number of days as you say. But since Scotland is regularly at least 5 or 6 degrees colder than southern England i think something better should be in place for people struggling there. Its not rocket science.

This is the question I ask every day. What if there are families who don't have room to give up takeaway coffees, booze, expensive clothing, because they already don't do such things? Not for everyone this price hike is just a matter of getting cheaper HP plan for a car or switching Liz Earle to L'Oreal.