Hopes of a mild winter in the UK are dropping along with the mercury. On 28 November, the Met Office said the month would end with the “coldest spell of the autumn so far”, predicting temperatures to dip to -3°C in southern England.
Yet as the cold sets in, many Brits are unable to switch the heating on. Energy bills, double what they were last winter, are too high for the more than two million people that are already in debt to energy companies. As consumers do not pay their bills, they are forced on to pre-payment meters, which require topping up and cost more than the direct debit system. They also enable desperate people to “self-disconnect” to reduce costs.
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