LIVES will be lost, campaigners warned today after a survey revealed that more than 1.7 million households do not plan on turning on their heating this year.

The number of those who said they will keep the heating off in polling for Uswitch is nearly double the 972,000 who said they did not heat their homes last year.

Fifty-five per cent of those blamed the continued rise of the cost of living, while 25 per cent of those over 65 said their decision followed the loss of winter fuel payments.

Another one million households will not turn on the heating until December to keep costs down, according to the poll.

About 43 per cent of households said they will only turn the heating on if they are too cold while 31 per cent will only heat some rooms in their home.

Uswitch energy spokesman Will Owen said the findings are “deeply concerning.”

Earlier this month, MPs voted in Parliament against an opposition motion to not remove winter fuel payments from all but the poorest pensioners, leaving millions of people without the support of up to £300.

National Pensioners Convention general secretary Jan Shortt said that the poll’s results are “unfortunately not unexpected” given the cuts.

She told the Star: “It was always going to be the case when the government deemed that older people should be the first to suffer under their austerity mark two policy. 

“Let there be no doubt, lives will be lost.”

End Fuel Poverty Coalition co-ordinator Simon Francis said that households of all ages have already faced three winters of high energy prices, driven by the “volatile cost of gas and soaring standing charges.”

He said: “Coupled with the soaring cost of living, we know many simply can’t afford to heat their homes or cook warm, nutritious food.

“But instead of increasing support, the new government has taken away winter fuel payments for the elderly and delivered a real-terms cut in the level of the household support fund which is available.”

Mr Francis said that Chancellor Rachel Reeves “will need to do more than pull a rabbit out of the hat in her first Budget,” which will be revealed next month.

“She needs to unveil a whole package of support to get us through this winter and until the government’s long-term plans to bring down bills bear fruit,” he said.

“A failure to do so will condemn people to another winter of misery in cold, damp and even mouldy homes.”

Fuel Poverty Action has called for the government to abolish the “inhumane” standing charges households face and bring a committee to deliver “energy for all.”

John Whitcher, the campaign group’s unions and communities lead, called the poll’s findings “shameful,” adding: “Taking away winter fuel payments from thousands of people when energy bills are set to continue to rise only fuels feelings of despair when we have a government that was elected on change.

“Rachel Reeves and [Prime Minister] Keir Starmer need to understand that we cannot keep operating on Conservative fiscal rules.

“There is plenty of money to go round. It is an ideological choice if we are willing to make the rich pay their fair share or again put the strain on the poor.”

Warm This Winter spokeswoman Caroline Simpson said the statistics are “horrifying” and raised fears for pensioners who will be left in the cold.

She said: “It proves what we thought, that while many people back some form of means testing, scrapping winter fuel payments for all at short notice carries a real risk of putting millions of vulnerable pensioners in harm’s way.

“We are calling for the government to find a way to reach those pensioners through extending other forms of benefits and also look at a more comprehensive system of support for all of those living in cold, damp homes.

“It is also essential that the UK pushes ahead with plans to free us from gas price volatility, which is currently leaving us all at the whim of international factors over which we have no control and break the cycle of shock energy prices.”

Over the weekend, the government revealed that there had been no wide-ranging assessment of the impact of winter fuel cuts but its equalities analysis suggested that some of the most vulnerable could still lose out on payments.