Britain faces an “absolute poverty crisis”, consumer champion Martin Lewis warned on Monday as he called for action to shield millions of vulnerable people from rocketing energy bills.
The founder of the website Moneysavingexpert said a “substantial” increase in funding was needed to help those most severely impacted by a frightening surge in prices.
“We are going to have to put money into the system or we are going to have an absolute, not a relative, poverty crisis in this country, with people being unable to eat or dying because of the cold,” Mr Lewis told the BBC.
His blunt message came just three weeks to the day until energy regulator Ofgem is due to announce the scale of a hike in the price cap for 15 millions households.
Respected consultants Cornwall Insight last week updated its forecast and predicted the price cap for 11 million on standard or other default tariffs would leap by 50% - 10 times the current rate of inflation - from £1,277 to an average £1,925 from April 1, meaning an extra £648 a year to find.
As it stands, the average bills could surge beyond an eye-watering £2,000 per next winter, it said.
A price cap for four million households with prepayment meters - often among the poorest households - is also set to surge from April.
All eyes are on what can be done between now and Ofgem’s announcement on February 7 to offset the punishing rise, with pressure piling on Chancellor Rishi Sunak in particular can do to loosen the Treasury’s purse strings.
Mr Lewis said axing the 5% VAT on energy bills - a measure backed by the Mirror and which could shave £100 off the average energy bill from April - was one option.
Are you worried about the rising cost of living? Tell us how it affects you: emma.munbodh@mirror.co.uk
But he called for others in order to especially help those who will be left reeling the most.
Among his suggestions is a targeted version of the cap which would freeze prices for vulnerable households.
He also recommended widening the criteria for the £140 Warm Homes Discount so anyone eligible for Universal Credit would get it.
Mr Lewis told BBC’s Radio 4’s Today programme: “We absolutely know that we need a substantial increase in the billions of pounds of funding to vulnerable people and people on low incomes or it is no exaggeration to say 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.”
He added: “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.
“How the Exchequer pays for that, 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.”
Mr Lewis also blasted the market which for years has rewarded those with internet access and experience who have been able shop around for the cheapest energy deals.
“If a struggling 90-year-old grandmother without internet access, with onset dementia was paying more than she should, which they always have, then I would say that is an illegitimate victim,” Mr Lewis said.
It came as a report warned millions of families in England will be dragged into fuel poverty overnight when energy bills soar in April.
Think tank the Resolution Foundation predicted that the number of households who will find energy unaffordable will treble to 6.3 million when the price cap lifts.
Meanwhile, the former head of Ofgem insisted the current crisis caused by soaring wholesale gas prices was a “worldwide phenomenon”.
However, the taxpayer-funded regulator has been slammed for failing to tackle problems unique to the UK over many years.
They include criticism about an explosion in the number of energy suppliers which has now resulted in dozens going bust because of the surge in costs, leaving all households to pick up the massive bill.
Dermot Nolan, Ofgem chief executive from 2014 to 2020, said: “We have got a number of things wrong but fundamentally it is not our fault that gas prices have risen internationally.”
