The Government’s emergency blackout helpline, announced after last Christmas’s power cuts, won’t be up and running for another year and a half, according to information obtained by Labour.
 
During the floods and power cuts that affected 750,000 households last winter, many energy companies were criticised for failing to keep households informed of what was being done to help them or when they were likely to reconnected. In response, the Energy Secretary Ed Davey pledged to establish a new 999-style emergency blackout helpline for households to call.

But a parliamentary question from Caroline Flint MP, Labour’s Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, has uncovered that the helpline is not expected to be operational until April 2016 at the earliest – two and a half years after it was first announced.
 
Caroline Flint MP, Labour’s Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said:

“Thousands of families spent last Christmas without power and without any proper information from their energy company about what was going on. All of us hope that there won’t be a repeat of last year’s awful weather, but the Government should have taken proper precautions to ensure that no one is left in the dark this winter.

“It is totally unacceptable that a year after they promised to set up a 999-style blackout hotline there is still no number for households to call – and at the current rate there won’t be one next winter either. It only takes three years to build a power station, so there’s no reason why it should take so long to get a helpline up and running.”