Leigh Park mum eating just two meals a week after British Gas failed to send energy vouchers

Bernice Manniex, 51 from Leigh Park, was meant to receive energy vouchers via British Gas each month - but for months on end these have not arrived.

Forced to choose between heating and eating, she has practically stopped eating entirely in a bid to keep her son fed and her meter topped up.

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Bernice, who works as a cleaner, said: ‘I’m lucky if I eat twice a week because I can’t afford it. I’m a single parent as well, I can’t afford to feed my son and myself and keep my electric and gas topped up.

‘So, I’m lucky if I have two meals a week. I’m a person, I shouldn’t be living like this.’

Ms Manniex has complained about British Gas not fulfilling their promise to offer energy support vouchers to their customers for help with energy costs during the winter months.

The energy support fund is a government fund given to energy firms, which is then distributed to customers by the firms themselves, in the form of support vouchers.

The support vouchers come directly from British Gas so if you pay for your energy by direct debit, the voucher gets directly credited to your account, and if you have a smart meter the money automatically gets put onto your meter.

But for card and key meters, customers have to wait for the voucher to be delivered to them in the post.

When Ms Manniex tried to contact British Gas to resolve her issue, she spent hours waiting on the phone, or she was given different excuses and responses to her issue continuously.

She said: ‘It’s been over five hours sometimes, and I’m calling them every single day to find out where these vouchers are. The October ones ran out the other day, so that’s £66 lost.’

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When asked about how she felt with the way she had been treated throughout the whole situation, she said: ‘I think it’s absolutely disgusting. They’re blaming Royal Mail, telling me Royal Mail has got all the vouchers because of the strikes they have been pulling, but I’m pretty sure Royal Mail definitely hasn’t got my vouchers from October and November. They’re giving me a different excuse each time I call them.’

Ms Manniex said that she had to get food by other means over the Christmas period, so she could use her gas and electric, and said: ‘For someone who works, I shouldn’t be starving. For Christmas, I had to go to a food bank to get things to be able to feed my son over Christmas. For the working person, it shouldn’t be like that.’

When asked about the situation, a British Gas spokesperson stated: ‘Ms Manniex’s supply was transferred to us in August 2022 where her smart payment meters were in credit mode. We therefore applied her government EBSS payments as credits on her account.

‘We’re sorry for the time take to resolve this and we’re in the process of reaching out to Ms Manniex to assure her that November and December's payments have been resent as vouchers and January’s voucher is on its way.’