THE GOVERNMENT MUST SUBVENT ENERGY FOR EVERY HOUSEHOLD if the UK is to retain its status as a developed nation, a former pensions minister has said.

Baroness Ros Altman spoke out when it was revealed that over a million Britons are in debt to predatory loan sharks, frequently to fund basic expenses like council tax and electricity. Her remarks also coincided with popular forecasts that the worst is yet to come, with more people being forced into poverty and evicted from their homes.

Baroness Altman stated that drastic action is required to avoid spiraling numbers from falling into poverty, resulting in long-term “misery and mortality.”

According to the life peer, an increasing number of people are unable to adequately heat their homes or feed themselves or their families.

Many are desperate enough to borrow at exorbitant interest rates from lenders or to engage in the “gamble” of cryptocurrency, which she noted, “tends not to end well.”

“People will be running out of money within months. Pensioners, disabled people, and those with young families are on the front line, but people are being affected across the board including working families.

Millions of people won’t suddenly find money they didn’t have before to pay for the rising cost of fuel and household goods. The Government must introduce energy subsidies for all households to tide people over while fuel prices are so high,” she said.

She added, “This sudden change in energy prices is like a heart attack on a family budget.

“It’s so phenomenal the government should subsidize half the additional cost for one to two years as we wait for prices to hopefully subside.

“We are meant to be a developed country – we have underestimated the extent of this crisis and if we don’t take action we will be like a third world nation.

“It’s all very well to say only a minority are affected, but this is not a tiny minority.

“We are talking about millions of proud British people who never earned a fortune either because they chose a job that wasn’t particularly well paid and pensioners who simply cannot make ends meet.”

She said the crisis could at least double the 3 million pensioners already in fuel poverty – one million of whom are classified as “extremely poor” which she said is not being properly mitigated by the government’s special grants – such as the warm homes discount or cold weather payments.

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