Former prime minister Gordon Brown says bedding banks are about to take their place alongside food banks across the UK as people struggle to keep themselves and their families warm.
Mr Brown, writing in The Guardian, called it an '18th century answer'.
He said: "In all my time in politics I have never witnessed so much poverty and hardship."
Mr Brown added: "A few weeks ago hundreds of anxious mothers queued up outside their local Co-ops after the family centre staff raised funds to add a £50 credit to their gas and electricity prepayment cards.
"This is poverty at its demeaning and degrading worst."
Energy bills which are already high are set to rocket again in April.
Mr Brown added: "I am hearing stories I thought I would never hear in 2022: of children obsessively checking the electricity meter when they wake up in the bitter cold; of families who can only turn on their heating for two hours a day and use torches at night rather than spending on electric light; and of mothers unable to hide their tears when they cannot provide their children with either winter clothes and shoes or basic warmth."
He said: "With only five weeks to go before the biggest hit to living standards for decades, it’s time to call a halt to the economic madness of allowing, at one and the same time, tax rises, food price hikes, escalating heating bills and real-terms benefit cuts – the quadruple whammy that will tip already hard-pressed families over the edge."
Mr Brown said one food bank in his area had recently been given a large donation of bedding and blankets which were quickly distributed - and is now waiting for more.
