Select Committee on Trade and Industry Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 97-99)

22 JUNE 2004

Ms Jenny Saunders, and Mr Richard Wilson

  Q97 Chairman: Welcome, Mr Wilson. We have you down as `tbc'—to be confirmed—so could you maybe introduce yourself and Ms Saunders, and we will get started.

  Mr Wilson: I am Richard Wilson, a policy officer on income issues at Help the Aged.

  Ms Saunders: I am Jenny Saunders, Director of Communications at National Energy Action.

  Q98 Chairman: I think you have been in for the evidence so far, so you see how we are going round the track. Energywatch has provided us with results of its research into the scale of the problem of fuel debt and the types of people principally affected. I think you probably heard what they had to say. Do you agree with their findings? In your view, what sort of percentage of those disconnected cannot pay as opposed to will not pay? What is your take on that?

  Ms Saunders: Can I start? National Energy Action takes a view that we do not like this terminology at all: the `can't-payers/won't payers'. We have been around the block a long time and this issue is quite emotive. There are a number of people who find themselves in a position that they cannot pay their bills, for a whole range of reasons, and to just lump them into these two definitions I think is quite dangerous. Whilst we recognise the commendable aims of this exercise in trying to identify people who are vulnerable, the `can't-payers', as the industry would call them, our starting point would be to say that they are not really able to achieve what they are going to set out to do through this exercise. It is unfair distinctions they are making between customers.

  Q99 Chairman: That is a question of definition, but you have not told us the numbers. Can you give us any indication of what you think are the numbers?

  Ms Saunders: Between the `can't-payers' and the `won't-payers' who are disconnected?


 
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