MORE than 60 charities have signed an open letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to demand more support for the seven million households now in fuel poverty.

It’s backed by a new Omnisis poll for the Fuel Poverty Coalition that reveals that more than three-quarters of the public want to see more action by the government on the energy crisis.

With the government’s current support schemes, 58 per cent of the population believe they will struggle to pay their bills this winter, and 83 per cent are worried about bills going up further when the schemes end in April.

The letter sent today by the Warm This Winter campaign is calling for the “upweighting” of benefits, further support from April, a programme of energy efficiency measures and the speeding-up of moves to cheaper renewable energy.

It reads: “Without immediate action from your government, it is estimated that around seven million households will face an impossible winter, being forced to make unimaginably difficult choices between heating their homes and putting food on the table.

“In many cases it will be even worse than this, as those with pre-existing health conditions and disabilities are forced to face the severe health consequences of living in a cold, damp home.”

Tessa Khan, director of the campaign group Uplift, which is a part of the campaign, hit out at politicians for spending months “fighting among themselves [while] the public has been watching this crisis bearing down on us.”

She said: “It now demands urgent government action, which means more support for those who need it this winter, and the wholesale replacement of [former PM Liz Truss’s] implausible and wrong-headed plans for taxpayer-subsidised gas production with a government-backed programme to insulate homes and an acceleration of cheaper renewables.”

Advice for Renters chief executive Joe Cole, another of the letter’s signatories, spoke about the cases the group saw.

He said: “One of our clients who suffers from PTSD was pushed close to suicide when he couldn’t top up his prepayment meter.

“His experience is proof of just how damaging life in fuel poverty can be on mental and physical health.”