In My View: Marsha de Cordova, MP for Battersea

The cost of living has skyrocketed in the last year – especially in the crucial areas of food, energy, heating, and housing.

One in eight households in Wandsworth experience fuel poverty, and the looming increase in bills in April will see that number increase.

We are in a crisis, and unless we see concrete measures from the Conservative Government, then families in fuel and food poverty in Battersea will be pushed closer to the edge.

We have seen little action from Wandsworth council in tackling this crisis. Last November, the council received £2million from the Government for Fuel Support Payments.

The council said: “We will ensure that this money is allocated quickly and fairly to the people who need it.”

However, halfway through January, many low-income households had been unable to access the funding.

Five Wandsworth charities, including Wandsworth Foodbank, reported that the phone helpline was not even in operation.

This is abject failure by Wandsworth council, an unacceptable delay which could lead to devastating consequences for families in Battersea who face a choice between heating and eating.

The pandemic shone a light on structural inequalities, but it has also exacerbated them.

New analysis by the New Economics Foundation shows poorer families are seeing their energy bills rise 7.5 times faster than the richest.

Poorer families are also disproportionately affected by rising food prices – while many foods in the supermarket are going up in line with inflation (the Consumer Price Index has risen from 0.6 per cent to 5.4 per cent in the last year), some staple foods have trebled in price.

The Government must act now and adopt Labour’s plan to avoid pushing families further into poverty.

More than 8,000 households in Battersea are worse off after the £20 uplift in Universal Credit was shamefully ended in October.

We would scrap VAT on heating bills and bring in a one-off windfall tax on the gas producers who have profited from the recent price rises, and would use that to invest in better insulation and sustainable energy.

We would increase and expand the Warm Homes Discount, targeting up to £600 of support to more than 14,000 families and pensioners in Battersea.

For some families in Battersea, this winter and the coming year will be particularly hard.

This Tory government’s approach of dither and delay is not enough.

We need to be proactive and bold in securing a fair deal for families.