PM, THE CLOCK IS TICKING...SORT ENERGY BILLS CRISIS!

URGENT action is needed to prevent a looming cost-of-living crisis for millions of hard-up Britons.

- Sarah O'Grady

Boris Johnson has three weeks before many struggling families’ fuel bills may double.

Stark warnings of the “burning deadline” came as analysts feared gas and electricity hikes may swamp families. The rise in the cap on energy costs could turn a cash crisis for many households into a catastrophe.

Soaring inflation and dearer food are driving more people into poverty. Consumer champion Martin Lewis said: “We need a substantial increase in the billions of pounds of funding to vulnerable people and people on low incomes.” The founder of Moneysavingexpert added: “Some will have to choose between heating and eating, and that is not appropriate in one of the world’s richest economies and a civilised nation.

“We are going to have to give people that money and it’s going to have to come in the first instance from the Exchequer. Whether that’s through a windfall tax, whether that’s through increasing general taxation, whether that’s increasing Government debt, I will leave to the economists.”

The growing demands for action came in the wake of a report from anti-poverty charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).

It found 54 per cent of single adult households, and a quarter of single parents and older couples without children, might have to spend more than half their income after housing costs on soaring energy bills.

Poorly-off families would see an average 18 per cent of income go on fuel charges if the cap rises by just under 50 per cent from April. Middle-income households will see their energy costs increase to a typical six per cent of their income, analysis shows.