Energy bills: Britons urged to pull together to prevent ‘cost of lives crisis’

The World Energy Council says this winter there ‘should be a self-organised response to this energy crisis, not just a top-down government response’. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Britons must develop a spirit of “radical generosity” to prevent lives being lost because of soaring gas and electricity bills this winter, the head of the World Energy Council (WEC) has warned.

Angela Wilkinson, the secretary general of the WEC, said that failure to get communities across Britain pulling together over the colder months would “move [this] from a cost of living crisis to a cost of lives crisis”.