According to today's Guardian, the DWP is studying a specially commissioned report from the Met Office which concludes that the weather may become so hot that poorer households may need help to pay their summer energy bills 'as they reach for air conditioners to prevent themselves dying from heat exhaustion'.

For further information see In the midst of a cold snap – a hot weather warning.

If they can afford to buy (or hire) an air conditioner perhaps it is not unreasonable to expect them to be able to afford to pay for the electricity to run it as well. Or am I being unrealistic?

No just judgemental. Poorer households include many people especially at risk from hot weather eg elderly, but relatives may have brought or passed on equipment or they got a loan from provident etc etc

Hot weather - when did we last have any of that? Not in the last two years that I can remember. The glaciers are coming back, mark my words.

Three years ago it topped 80 degrees for three weeks in July and some elderly people died of heatstroke. Perhaps the govt is is simply using some foresight. With the climate so erratic these days, who knows if it will happen again?