THE extension of the Household Support Fund is the “bare minimum” needed ahead of this winter and “puts a plaster on poverty,” campaigners have said.

The government said it was extending the support to help struggling households over winter today following calls for councils that the most vulnerable were facing a “support cliff edge.”

End Fuel Poverty Coalition co-ordinator Simon Francis said: “The extension of the Household Support Fund is the bare minimum the government needed to do this winter and it is a positive first step that ministers have indicated it will continue.

“But as the winter fuel payment axe plunges more pensioners into fuel poverty, the fund may prove to be inadequate as more vulnerable older people turn to local authorities for help and assistance.”

He urged ministers to introduce a help-to-repay scheme for those in energy debt, expand the Warm Home Discount scheme and restore winter fuel payments to more pensioners.