WHILE all of our gas and electricity bills have sky rocketed over the last year, temperatures outside have fallen, forcing more households into fuel debt with energy suppliers.

The ultimate outcome of this harsh reality manifests with power firms applying for court warrants to forcibly enter into people's homes to disconnect supplies or install pre-payment meters or the smart meter version of these.

Pre-payment meters as we know are more expensive and result in self-disconnection due to poverty and household cash-flow problems.

In the first 10 months of this year, 4,501 warrants were granted in Scotland to allow energy companies to forcibly enter homes - 1,437 more than in 2021 and 3,156 more than in 2020. I suspect this number will climb much higher in the New Year.

Across the UK, there have been almost 500,000 warrants applied for since the last lockdown. There have been reports of magistrate’s courts in England granting warrants by the bucket load as hundreds of applications are put into batches.

What do we know about the process in Scotland?

We know that almost all applications are made to the Justice of the Peace Court (JPC), although they could be made to the Sheriff Court.

The procedure is under the Rights of Entry (Gas and Electricity Boards) Act 1954. It's a civil matter, yet power firms prefer the JPC - no doubt because it's an expedited process with no civil court rules and isn't particularly conducive to consumers opposing the granting of a warrant.

Most warrants are for companies to forcibly install pre-payment meters. The 1954 Act never envisaged this as there was only disconnection some 70 years ago, yet we have a statutory framework that's never caught up with the 21st century.

One might argue that forcing pre-payment meters on customers is beyond the scope of the 1954 Act.

Consumers should be given notice of an application for a warrant of entry unless the JPC is persuaded this isn't necessary in the interests of health and safety or where criminal activity is suspected.

You can oppose the granting of a warrant - the court has to be satisfied that entry is "reasonably required by the supplier". Few people challenge these cases and it's fair to say the procedure doesn't make this easy.

Defences may include: the debt is in dispute; the level of debt is so low a warrant would be a disproportionate act; there are vulnerable household members, such as children or elderly relatives in the dwelling whose wellbeing would be placed at risk with a pre-payment meter. There may be vulnerable householders who require a continuous energy supply to operate medical equipment.

Alan McIntosh is an approved money adviser with AdviceTalks in Glasgow. He helps people with energy debts and is concerned with the lack of consumer protection in Scotland: "There's currently no national guidance being used by the Scottish courts when considering applications for warrants to access someone's home.

"Although energy firms have to give notice before they exercise a right of entry, if people refuse entry, which they're allowed to do, the courts aren't always ensuring people get notice once a warrant has been applied for. It's clear the application forms don't disclose everything a judge should know before deciding if it's reasonable to grant a warrant.

"This includes whether the home is on the Priority Service Register, whether the debt is in dispute, whether the arrears are already being paid through a debt solution or what steps have been taken to try and agree a reasonable repayment plan. Warrants are being granted for homes they shouldn't be granted for. The result is the courts are failing people."

At present, there's guidance issued in each of the six Sheriffdoms of Scotland. I've looked at some of the guidance and the style of forms that power companies are advised to use. I agree this all needs updated and made much more consumer friendly, not least to enable people to understand they can defend such applications.

The six Sheriffs Principal could issue updated national guidance to facilitate greater transparency for customers before warrants were granted and ensure courts received all relevant information before granting warrants. They have issued Scotland-wide guidance before for eviction cases.

Arguably the current system is not compliant with article 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 because the procedure inhibits the ability to make proper representations for consumers before a warrant is granted.

While this issue remains untested, the European Convention on Human Rights ensures the right to a fair hearing and representation in legal proceedings which affect the rights of a person, including determining civil obligations. Those principles are illustrated in Rommelfanger v Germany (1989) and Diennert v France (1996).