WINTER FUEL PAYMENTS FOR PEOPLE WITH SPINAL CORD INJURIES

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That this House notes that people with paralysis and serious spinal cord injury have an impaired ability to regulate their body temperature due to an inability to constrict their blood vessels; further notes that this often leads to people with serious spinal cord injuries having to heat their homes at higher temperatures than other households and therefore increasing many of their fuel bills; expresses concern that many single people with spinal cord injury who have a carer or who do not live alone only have access to a minimum income of £84.40 or £96.70 depending on the level of disability living allowance they receive; and calls on the Government to make people with spinal cord injury eligible for either the £200 annual winter fuel payments currently paid to pensioners or an equivalent winter fuel payment scheme.