An Army veteran claims he doesn’t know if he will live until Christmas as he faces the heartbreaking choice between eating or heating due to the rising cost of living, Hull Live reports. George Ford, 75, revealed he owes more than £1,400 to energy firms and has no idea how he will afford the rises in fuel. He now faces stark choices in a bid to reduce his growing debts.
Pensioner George, from Hull, told GB News: "I sit here until about 10pm with no light on. I make a flask of coffee or tea to last me all the time so I'm not using so much but my bills never seem to go down, I can't afford it. I know the things I suffer from, COPD, heart trouble and I've got no feeling in my hands or my legs. I don't think I'm going to be alive by Christmas because I can't afford to keep myself warm.
"I feel sorry for a lot of pensioners round here, it is going to hit them very much. It is going to hit the foodbanks more. I'll be honest, I just feel like dying."
As George makes the tough choice between heating and eating, he says he’s lost nearly two stone in a month. Despite his own struggles, he still manages to volunteer at the Beannie Street Foodbank in the city and says he feels sorry for other pensioners hit by the rise in energy prices.
He said: "I won't take anything from the foodbank because there's families that need it, there's children that need it more than I do." The foodbank's founder Robbie Keane says he has seen a big rise in the number of pensioners having to turn to foodbanks.
"We are seeing an awfully big increase in pensioners using the foodbank and we are very worried. These pensioners are very worried and scared," he said.
"We have seen an increase in people who have never used a foodbank before. It is up by around 30-50 per cent. The prices going up at supermarkets is very scary. There is also a lot of people in work poverty and that is creeping up as well and that has really risen in the last two to three weeks."
Citizens Advice believes around five million people will be unable to pay their energy bills from April, even accounting for the support the Government has already announced. With energy prices set to increase again in October, this number is expected to triple as 14 million are forecast to be unable to pay energy bills.
As a 54 per cent increase to Ofgem’s price cap hit bills, the Resolution Foundation think tank said the number of English households in fuel stress – those spending at least ten per cent of their total budgets on energy bills – will double overnight from 2.5 to five million.
The foundation’s senior economist Jonathan Marshall said: "Today’s energy price cap rise will see the number of households experiencing fuel stress double to five million. Another increase in energy bills this autumn hastens the need for more immediate support, as well as a clear, long-term strategy for improving home insulation, ramping up renewable and nuclear electricity generation, and reforming energy markets so that families’ energy bills are less dependent on global gas prices."
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