ONLY urgent action will prevent millions more British households falling into poverty as energy costs soar 14 times faster than wages, the TUC warned yesterday.

With many individuals and families already “on the brink” of being unable to meet the most basic costs of survival, a “toxic combination” of huge rises in gas and electricity prices, increasing inflation and insufficient wage increases threatens to push them over the edge.

Bigger gas and electricity bills will on their own wipe out the year’s wage increases, and the lowest paid will suffer most, particularly those dependent on universal credit benefits to top up their low wages, the TUC said.

The union federation has proposed a programme of action to protect households from looming disaster.

It calls for:

A windfall tax on energy companies’ bloated profits, with the cash directed to energy grants for the most vulnerable households;

A rapid programme of home insulation targeting lower income households and delivered by the public sector;

An increase of universal credit benefits to £270 a week, 80 per cent of the living wage;

Scrapping of the five-week wait for universal credit and the two-child limit;

A plan to increase wages in all jobs in all sectors, working with unions and employers to establish “fair pay” agreements;

Cost-of-living wage increases for key workers in the public sector;

An immediate increase in the statutory minimum wage to at least £10 an hour.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Everyone who works for a living ought to earn enough to get by.

“But years of wage stagnation, and cuts to social security, have left millions badly exposed to sky-high bills.

“With households across Britain pushed to the brink, the government must do far more to help workers with crippling energy costs.

“That means imposing a windfall tax on oil and gas profits and using the money raised to give hard-pressed families energy grants, not loans.

“It means a real increase to universal credit to stop low-income workers from being pushed into poverty. That’s the fastest way to get support to families who need it.

“And it means coming up with a long-term plan to get wages rising across the economy.”