Heating allowances
Sir: Custos (March 17) comments on the recent statement by sir Keith Joseph on heating allowances for families and old people. He is quite right that a general misconception now exists that all those receiving benefit will, from October 1, be eligible for additional heating grants. Far from it — the only change will be that if they can prove "exceptional need" and therefore get (in most cases) 30p a week, it will no longer be deducted from their basic scale rate benefit.
The Heating Action Group has been set up to offer advice and help to the 74 per cent or so who don't know they can claim for heating, to publicise their plight and where necessary appeal against the Supplementary Benefits Commission's decisions. Need there be another winter when old people sleep in chairs beside their kitchen heater because that's all the warmth they can afford, or pay more of their miserable income to keep warm than on food and clothes combined?
Marigold Johnson 1 Macklin Street, Drury Lane, London WC2
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