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.