Eight major trade unions yesterday joined forces to call for Labour to adopt policy on eradicating fuel poverty.

The party has previously said that “misbehaving” energy firms should be banned from trading.

But union general secretaries have now penned a letter to Labour leader Ed Miliband suggesting four key policies they believe would be winners with cash-strapped voters at next year’s election.

“What we desperately need is a strategy that will address the UK’s energy crisis by eliminating the need for large scale fracking and bring millions of people in from the cold,” said Unison general secretary Dave Prentis.

The measures include making all British homes reach a basic standard of energy efficiency.

They propose grants for energy efficiency drives — capped at £10,000 — to bring all six million low-income homes to efficiency band C by 2025 and at least two million by 2020.

Further proposals include a 0 per cent interest rate for energy efficiency loans and a street-by-street delivery programme led by local councils.

The recommendations are taken from Unison’s Warmer Homes report, which says they would save householders £300-600 a year and help conserve dwindling gas supplies.

Unison was joined in the call by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), academics’ union UCU, public-sector union PCS, technical union Prospect and general unions GMB, Unite and Community.

FBU general secretary Matt Wrack, who will support a motion on energy intervention at next week’s TUC congress, said: “Heating and lighting are not optional extras. They are among the necessities of life.

“It is appalling that this government stands idly by while energy costs spiral.”

The news came as Labour shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint said that utility giants had no “god-given right” to supply customers and should be stripped of their corporate power if they rip people off.

Introducing an opposition day debate in Parliament, she said: “Today’s motion proposes a new power for the regulator — the power to revoke energy company licences where there are repeated instances of the most serious and deliberate breaches of their licence conditions which harm the interest of consumers.”