Campaigners carry coffin to Downing Street

Protesters have carried a mock coffin to Downing Street in icy conditions to honour those people who've died from cold related illnesses.

They held a minute's silence before carrying the coffin bearing the number of excess deaths to the gates outside Number 10 in Westminster.

The campaigners delivered a letter calling for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to take immediate action to end deaths from cold-related illnesses.

The National Pensioners' Convention (NPC), Fuel Poverty Action, the End Fuel Poverty Coalition and Disabled People Against Cuts were among campaigning organisation involved with the vigil.

ONS data estimates 13,400 more deaths occurred in the winter period of December 2021 to March 2022 compared with the average of the non-winter periods.

The new figures are the second lowest for decades but the fuel poverty charity National Energy Action has warned they "only cover last winter, when energy bills were half the amount that they are now".

Last year 4.5 million UK households were fuel poor but this has risen to 6.7 million, it said.

In a statement, its chief executive Adam Scorer said:

"Next year, these statistics will expose the full impact of today's energy crisis.

"The toxic combination of extraordinary heating costs, stagnant or falling incomes, and our notoriously poor, unhealthy housing stock will take a heavier toll with lives blighted by debt, ill health, and worse.

"This winter we need the Government to give more support and stop millions falling through the cracks with the most awful consequences."

Standing outside the gates to Downing Street, Fuel Poverty Action co-founder Ruth London said:

"Nobody should be dying because they haven't got enough money to keep their heating on and in many cases keep the lights on.

"The stories we've been hearing are absolutely heart-rending, people who are wearing Covid masks at home because the air at home is too cold, too sharp on the back of the throat.

"People who are sleeping with every single bit of clothing and blankets on top of them and still shivering in their own beds, people who are spending the day in bed."

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