Thirty million 'set to be in fuel poverty'

A new study into the crippling costs of fuel suggests that 30 million people could be living in fuel poverty by the end of the year, dramatically higher than the Department for Energy and Climate Change estimates of just 3.9 million.

Research into the proportion of household income spent on fuel bills in 13,000 homes in the UK has found that 37 per cent, the equivalent of 23 million people, were already spending more than 10 per cent of their income on gas and electricity bills – the measure of fuel poverty, according to energy price comparison site SwitchGasandElectric.com.

A further 7 million will fall into fuel poverty if suppliers increase their prices as expected later this summer.

"What the government data does not reveal is the huge number of Britons who are already forced to spend more than a tenth of their income on gas and electricity bills," says Sally Hill, the managing director of SwitchGasandElectric.com.