CALLS for help with better home insulation are being made by Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron.

Mr Farron also wants the Government to increase competition in the energy market to help reduce bills for households who struggle to afford their fuel costs.

"With the recent hot weather, people are not thinking about fuel poverty but as soon as the cold weather hits many will be worrying about how they’ll pay their energy bills this winter," said the MP.

"Some of the poorest people in our society will be left with the choice between heating and eating. The Government is failing in its basic duty, helping the most vulnerable."

The Liberal Democrat manifesto featured a commitment to ensure that four million properties were given "insulation retrofits" by 2022, and for fuel-poor households to first in the queue.

"Britain is facing an energy bill crisis," said Mr Farron. "Two-and-a-half million people across the country can’t afford their energy bills – including one in ten here in South Lakeland. If this is not a scandal I don’t know what is."

The MP is calling on the Government to take "urgent action". He said recent data showed more than 3,700 South Lakes households are living in fuel poverty - and more than 26,000 across Cumbria.

According to Energy UK, a fuel-poor household is one which needs to spend more than 10 per cent of its income on all fuel use and to heat its home to an adequate standard of warmth. In England, this is defined as 21°C in the living room and 18°C in other occupied rooms.

Across the North West, 12 per cent of households are now living in fuel poverty, said Mr Farron, the first time since the 2008 financial crash that the proportion of households living in fuel poverty has increased.

The average fuel-poverty gap – between households’ energy bills and what they can afford to pay – in the North West is £312.