Raise you 1%... Cut you 3.7bn

Have I slipped back in time two centuries, or is this still Great Britain in the year 2012 AD? It is?
Then why have I just read the most terrifying report that would belie a modern, western society?

Last year 24,000 people died through fuel poverty. That's almost a tenth of a city the size of Newcastle Upon Tyne, dead through the cold because they couldn't afford to heat their homes.

Half were pensioners, 30% were disabled and the ones no-one perhaps imagines are the 20% who were families with children under 5 years of age. Now also bear in mind that many of those families were working families but so poorly paid they relied on benefits and tax credits to top up to a liveable sum.

Benefits, however, are now capped to 1% annual increase, half the rate of inflation. When was the last time your fuel bill came in cheaper than the previous year? Was it by any chance more than 1% higher? I suspected as much.

Working tax credits, the thresholds for which have been hugely reduced cutting off many families, are capped. Child benefit is capped. That means by 2015, working families will be hundreds of pounds a year worse off. But that's fair right? Working families belong in the "shirker" or should that be "scrounger" group, right? The average family loses more from cuts to tax credits and other benefits than it gains from the increase in the personal allowance.

This is just a part of how the 'reforms' hit everyone and hit hard. Homelessness is increasing. Plans to link housing benefit to inflation and not to rents could leave many unable to pay the rent. Parents looking after disabled children face the danger of losing their homes or having to put their children  into care. But announcing a benefit increase of 1% is meant to blind us to the fact that this is in real terms a cut. A £3.7bn a year cut and from the areas affecting our poorest and most vulnerable people.

At least the same number are likely to die in their homes from the cold again this year. The stats don't count the growing number of homeless adults and children. I can't help but think of the little match girl and can't believe that in one of the world's most powerful nations and in this day and age this can be happening. So I must have slipped back in time. It's the only reasonable explanation.

Do me a favour and keep an eye out for the most vulnerable in your area over the winter. You could save a life with a simple flask of tea.

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