Money is stacked on top of an energy bill, February 3, 2025
ENERGY companies are still relying on closed magistrates’ court hearings to secure warrants against households with unpaid bills, more than three years after the pre-payment meter scandal.
Magistrates are still sitting in private to authorise forced entry, often approving hundreds of warrants at a time based on applications they have never personally reviewed, an investigation by the Standard newspaper revealed yesterday.
It was revealed in 2022 that magistrates’ courts across Britain were effectively rubber-stamping mass batches of warrants for debt agencies, acting on behalf of energy firms.
Many of those targeted were among the poorest households, already hit by the cost-of-living crisis, with agents breaking into homes to install expensive pre-payment meters.
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A new court process for approving warrants was introduced in April 2024 following approval by Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring.
The revised system was intended to introduce safeguards, including a requirement for energy firms to give at least 10 days’ notice of an application, to attempt contact with a household at least 10 times and to wait at least a month after a missed bill before applying for a warrant.
But a year-long probe found that magistrates are now carrying out the work almost entirely in secret, sometimes from home.
Failures by debt agencies to comply with legal requirements were also found to be routinely brushed aside.
End Fuel Poverty Coalition co-ordinator Simon Francis said the findings exposed “a deeply troubling practice where people struggling with unaffordable energy bills are condemned through the courts out of sight and without a voice.”
He said: “It’s time to stop criminalising energy debt and allowing these cases to be pursued through a court system which is clearly unfit for the purpose.
Small retrofit firms have asked for an extension to the insulation scheme to protect their businesses. Photograph: Jon Challicom/Alamy
E3G thinktank warns retrofit sector could shed 10,000 skilled jobs as small firms struggle to survive
Cuts to a scheme for insulation and heatpumps for low-income households will leave homes damp, draughty and unsafe over winter, experts have said.
Housing have asked for a one-year extension to the scheme to ensure continuity and prevent small retrofit firms going bust. Companies say funding for solar panels and insulation is already being withdrawn, leaving homes cold and draughty as winter sets in.
Rachel Reeves announced in her budget that she would cut £150 a year from the average energy bill, partly financed by axing the £1.3bn energy company obligation (ECO) scheme that helped fund upgrades for homes owned or rented by households earning under £31,000.
This scheme is due to be end in March. The government plans to launch a “warm homes plan” to provide funding for heat pumps, insulation and other home upgrades but this has been beset by delays.
Experts have said this will affect an estimated 222,000 future retrofit projects that would have cut bills for low-income households.
Reacting to the Autumn Budget statement delivered by the chancellor Rachel Reeves today, Green Party Treasury spokesperson, Adrian Ramsay MP, said:
“Instead of delivering a transformational Budget to tax extreme wealth fairly and tackle the cost-of-living crisis, this Labour Government has once again chosen to paper over the cracks – with half-measures that won’t do enough to fix the deep-rooted problems in our economy that are keeping ordinary people in poverty while the super-rich get richer.
“The Chancellor spoke about asking everyone to make a contribution, but it is frankly inexcusable that she has made the political choice to squeeze households already struggling with the cost of essentials, whilst letting multimillionaires and billionaires off the hook.
“It is indefensible that the Chancellor is cutting vital home insulation funding, one of the best ways to lower bills.
“And whilst scrapping the cruel two-child benefit cap will be a huge relief to families across the country, it is unforgivable that it has taken 18 months for the Chancellor to acknowledge the terrible harm and distress this cap has caused to so many families. Far more action is needed to end the scandal of child poverty.”
Green party leader Zack Polanski (Green Party of England and Wales). Image: Bristol Green Party Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
Greens call for the introduction of immediate and long term cost of living measures to cut bills by hundreds of pounds, and a package of fair wealth taxation measures to raise over £30 billion a year.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski said:
“It is a political choice to keep children in poverty whilst billionaires and multimillionaires get richer, that’s just a fact, and any politician who says otherwise doesn’t have the public’s interests at heart.
“Our country is and has been for a long time now at breaking point. Life has become literally unaffordable for millions of people. People are angry, and I get it, our communities deserve so much better. It is time for bold policies and bold choices that make a real difference to ordinary people
“But instead of facing this reality head-on, this Labour government, like the Conservatives before it, has stood by whilst the 1% get ever richer at the expense of ordinary people.”
The Green Party leadership team, together with Green MPs, Peers, and 20 Green Council Leaders and Deputy Leaders – have joined forces to urge the Chancellor to tax wealth fairly, end the cost-of-living crisis and deliver real change.
In a letter sent to the Chancellor today [Wednesday 19th November] the Green Party is calling on the government to commit to immediate and long term measures to address the cost-of-living crisis and bring children out of poverty.
Senior Green figures are urging Reeves to tax wealth by:
Implementing a 1% tax on wealth over £10 million and 2% over £1 billion, raising £14.8 billion per year.
Aligning rates of Capital Gains Tax – currently the lowest in the G7 – with income tax so income from work is not taxed more than income from wealth, raising an additional at least £12 billion per year.
Introducing National Insurance on investment income, in line with employment income, to raise at least £6.1 billion per year.
Senior Green figures are urging Reeves to tackle the cost-of-living by:
Moving policy costs off bills, cutting typical household energy bills by £156 per year.
Stopping gas prices inflating the price of electricity, cutting bills by at least £65 per year.
Scaling up nationwide retrofit.
Ending profiteering off essentials: bringing energy retail companies and water into public ownership.
Giving Local Authorities the power to control rents, similar to Scotland.
Scrapping the two child benefit cap in full.
Extending free school meals to all primary and secondary school children.
Greens say the package of measures would raise over £30 billion a year to spend on tackling the cost-of-living crisis and bringing down household energy bills, which have risen by 42% since 2021.
Last year, billionaires saw their collective wealth increase by £35 million a day and Britain’s 50 richest families now hold more wealth than half the population combined.
The Greens argue that taxes on the super-rich should be used to move policy costs away from electricity bills, saving a typical household around £156 a year from their electricity bill. The government should pay for these policy measures through wealth taxation instead. In addition to this, they call for decoupling the price of electricity from expensive gas, which they say could cut bills by at least £65 per year for the average household.
In light of rumoured cuts to the government’s flagship Warm Homes Plan, they are also calling on the government to ‘scale up’ investment in home insulation, to reduce bills in the long-term.
As well as scrapping the two-child benefit cap in full, the Greens are also pushing the Chancellor to extend free school meals to every child to help families with soaring food prices, which have risen by over a third since 2020.
Green Party Treasury Spokesperson Adrian Ramsay MP said:
“The Chancellor has spent the past 16 months claiming that there isn’t enough money to lift children out of poverty, ensure warm homes for pensioners, or provide vital support for people with disabilities.
“But the truth is Starmer and Reeves are choosing to make life harder for ordinary people while refusing to even consider taxing wealth fairly to unlock billions of pounds for the public purse.
“We’re making clear that there are common-sense steps this government could and should take to raise revenue and deliver the change people are crying out for.”
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Demonstrators carry signs calling out Donald Trump’s refusal to release files from the federal case against deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, his former friend, in New York City’s Times Square on October 14, 2025. (Photo by Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“Your eleventh-hour decision to not fight a vote in the House that you were certainly going to lose is yet another dodge,” Democratic legislators wrote to the president, a former friend of the dead criminal.
After President Donald Trump’s sudden about-face on the US House of Representatives’ imminent vote to force the release of files on deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a group of state legislators on Monday urged Trump to prove he is serious by not waiting for Congress to make public materials from the federal case against his former friend.
In a letter provided to Common Dreams by the group Defend America Action, the 15 elected Democrats called on Trump and his administration to “put the issue of the Epstein files to bed once and for all” and “focus on what the American people are concerned about: the affordability crisis which has exploded on your watch.”
“Just a few weeks ago, Americans from Georgia to Virginia to New Jersey registered their dissatisfaction with your economic performance with overwhelming victories for Democrats up and down the ballot,” they noted. “That should’ve been a wake-up call for you and your administration, but instead, you’ve turned to an all-too familiar strategy of gaslighting the American people with tales of a booming economy that don’t match reality.”t don’t match reality.”
“We need bipartisan solutions to the cost of living crisis, not multiple congressional committees, investigations, and precious floor time devoted to files related to Jeffrey Epstein, which you could release with the stroke of a pen.”
US House Democrats and a few Republicans have long fought to make the Department of Justice release its files on the late financier, which Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) recently pushed off for weeks by refusing to swear in Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.)—a delay he tried to blame on the government shutdown.
As the shutdown standoff over a looming healthcare crisis came to an end, Johnson finally administered the oath of office to Grijalva, who swiftly became the crucial 218th signature on a discharge petition to force a vote on the Epstein files. While her decision set up a December vote, Johnson then moved up the timeline.
With many House Republicans expected to vote for releasing the files as early as Tuesday, Trump sent shockwaves through the US on Sunday by suddenly declaring his support for the disclosure. He doubled down on Monday, telling reporters that he would sign the bill if it reached his desk but also returning to his claim that “the whole thing is a hoax.”
Trump on if he'll sign an Epstein files release bill: "We have nothing to do with Epstein. The Democrats do. All of his friends were Democrats. You look at this Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, Clinton… all I want is I want for people to recognize the great job I've done on pricing, on affordability."
As the state legislators wrote to Trump: “You have called the issue of the Epstein files a ‘hoax,’ and dismissed the numerous congressional efforts underway to pursue transparency, accountability, and justice for the hundreds of victims who suffered at Epstein’s hands. This issue has again overtaken Washington, DC, and you have mobilized enormous government resources, up to and including meetings in the ultra-secure Situation Room, to try to prevent the files’ release.”
“Your eleventh-hour decision to not fight a vote in the House that you were certainly going to lose is yet another dodge—you could order the full release of the files today so that we can all move forward and deal with the issues our voters and yours care about: making life affordable for American families,” they argued. “Those priorities should be addressing the skyrocketing costs that are keeping families up at night: housing, food, energy, and healthcare.”
“We need bipartisan solutions to the cost of living crisis, not multiple congressional committees, investigations, and precious floor time devoted to files related to Jeffrey Epstein, which you could release with the stroke of a pen,” they continued, stressing the need for “good partners” and “good policies” at the federal level to aid American families struggling with soaring prices. “Release the files and let’s get on with the business of the American people.”
Signatories to the letter include Iowa Rep. Kenneth Croken, Vermont Rep. William Greer, Colorado Sen. Cathy Kipp, Michigan Rep. Stephen Wooden, and Kentucky Rep. Lisa Willner. It is also signed by Pennsylvania Reps. Danilo Burgos and Arvind Venkat, Maryland Dels. Ashanti Martinez and Vaughn Stewart, Wisconsin’s Sen. Melissa Ratcliff and Rep. Ryan Clancy, and four lawmakers from New Hampshire: Reps. John Cloutier, Chris McAleer, Terri O’Rorke, and Terry Spahr.
Donald Trump and his paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein.Donald Trump and his paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein.Donald Trump picture with one of his wives, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Money is stacked on top of an energy bill, February 3, 2025
