SNP census bungling puts energy support payments at risk

The SNP’s decision to delay Scotland’s census is putting energy support payments for off-grid households at risk, according to findings by the Scottish Liberal Democrats today.

Documents published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy this week on eligibility for the Alternative Fuel Payment to off-grid homes have shown that part of the eligibility for support relies on census data. Data for England and Wales comes from the 2021 census, but data for Scotland comes from the 2011 census.

The SNP government chose to delay the 2021 census to 2022, putting Scotland out of step from the rest of the UK and leading to low uptake and repeated extensions to the census deadline. The eligibility for households across rural and island communities to receive the £200 payment is therefore reliant on twelve-year-old data.

Commenting on the findings, Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael said:

“We are seeing the real-world consequences of SNP ministers’ choice to delay the census while it went ahead across the rest of the country. They bungled it from beginning to end and we are now seeing the first casualty of their incompetence.

“Hard-pressed families who live outside the gas grid across Scotland have been waiting anxiously for fuel payments to finally kick in. We cannot afford any barriers to people getting the support they need.

“The idea that twelve-year-old census information can be relied upon to determine these payments is hard to fathom. There are questions to be asked of the UK government in how they can have confidence in this data. There are even more questions to be asked of the SNP-Green government in why Scotland’s census data is missing in action. It is bad enough when they are wasting time and money on the census. When that waste risks getting in the way of payments to struggling families it is unconscionable.”