Fuel poverty will blight around 45million people this winter as families struggle to pay energy bills, research claims.
Two-thirds of households will be plunged into a financial abyss by January as the rocketing cost of living devastates budgets.
Worringly, 86.4% of pensioner couples will be affected.
But single parent households, with two or more children, will be worse off with 90.4% being forced to choose between heat or eat.
Some 77.4% of couples with two children will suffer the same fate, according to a study by the University of York.
Fuel poverty is defined as when energy costs exceed 10% of a household’s net income.
The research found that in England the West Midlands will be the hardest hit region with 70.9% of families struggling to pay bills. This is followed by Yorkshire and the Humber with 70.6%, the North West at 68.6% and the North East on 67.3%.
In comparison, 56.4% of Londoners and 57.9% of households in the South East will be in that bracket in January 2023.
Ed Miliband, Shadow Climate Change Secretary, below, said: “These shocking figures show the full scale of the national emergency that could unfold unless the Government acts to freeze energy bills.
“We simply cannot allow the British people to suffer in this way.” Ofgem has come under fire for not doing enough to protect families.
Christine Farnish has quit as a director of the energy regulator over concerns that it has not “struck the right balance between the interests of consumers and the interests of suppliers”.Ofgem has now controversially revised the time it changes the energy price cap – the maximum suppliers can charge households – from six to
three months.
The cap is on course to rocket from £1,971 to £3,640 in October, £4,722 in January before hitting a predicted £5,601 in April.
Inflation reached a 40-year high of 10.1% in July, up from 9.4%.
