Fuel Poor Customers Support

Scottish & Southern Energy PLC
11 April 2008




                        SCOTTISH AND SOUTHERN ENERGY PLC

                        SUPPORT FOR FUEL POOR CUSTOMERS


Scottish and Southern Energy plc ('SSE') has agreed with the Department for
Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to provide additional support for
vulnerable electricity and gas customers in the period to March 2011. The UK
government has stated that given the substantial commitment that an agreement of
this kind represents, it will not expect companies to do more over the period
2008-11 on social assistance.

Under the agreement, SSE will operate existing and new schemes with a total
value of around £16m in the first phase, up to 31 March 2009. These schemes will
be designed to assist the fuel poor and those vulnerable to fuel poverty. They
will feature a variety of approaches such as 'social' tariffs, charitable
donations, bespoke services for vulnerable customers, work with advocate
organisations and community-based programmes.

In support of this agreement, SSE has today published a Code of Practice for
Fuel Poor Customers, following consultation with consumer and voluntary
organisations. It contains two key principles:

   •Energy suppliers should ensure that any 'social' tariff which they offer
    to fuel poor customers is the lowest-cost tariff made available by them to
    any type of customer, via any type of payment plan or sign-up method; and,
    as an additional safeguard,
   •Energy suppliers should ensure that their 'social' tariff for customers
    is lower than average direct debit tariffs in the UK.

SSE's 'social' tariff, 'energyplus care', conforms to these principles. It
offers householders a discount of 20% on their energy bills and a variety of
other services to help them better manage their energy consumption. In order to
provide additional support for vulnerable electricity and gas customers, SSE has
today committed to quadrupling the number of customers who benefit from
'energyplus care', to 100,000 customer accounts, over the next year.


Ian Marchant, Chief Executive of SSE, said:

'The single biggest contribution which energy suppliers can make to preventing
fuel poverty is to keep prices as low as possible for as long as possible. For
this reason, SSE will maintain its long-established responsible pricing policy:
we will seek to be the last, or one of the last, of the major suppliers to
increase prices if we have to and the first, or one of the first, to cut prices
if we can.

'The next biggest contribution which suppliers can make is to ensure social
tariffs are genuine. Vulnerable customers need the lowest prices available, not
simply a tariff labelled 'social', and that principle is at the heart of our new
Code of Practice. Many previous claims about spending on 'social' tariffs do not
conform to this principle. Our social tariff does, and we are going to quadruple
the number of customers who benefit from it.

'Determining how best to deliver this extra support for vulnerable customers
will present a number of challenges. The issues are not straightforward.
Nevertheless, we are committed to the effective and transparent delivery of this
£16m programme, in accordance with the Code of Practice we have now adopted.'


                                    -ends-


Note:

SSE's Code of Practice for Fuel Poor Customers can be viewed on SSE's corporate
website www.scottish-southern.co.uk



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