MORE than 50 MPs are demanding an investigation into high fuel bills after a huge rise in the number of the region’s families who are too poor to heat their homes.

They are calling for a competition inquiry into claims that the six largest energy suppliers are propping up heating bills, despite big falls in wholesale prices.

Critics argue that the companies – British Gas, EDF, E.On, Scottish Power and Scottish and Southern – have cut bills by only four per cent this year, when wholesale costs have halved. As a result, the average annual “big six”

bill is £1,140, nearly £200 more than the lowest cost charged by smaller, local energy firms such as First:Utility and OVO Energy.

The demand for an inquiry comes days after it was revealed that the number of North-East and North Yorkshire households living in fuel poverty rose by 142 per cent in three years. In Teesdale, County Durham, 28.2 per cent of households are in fuel poverty, with other blackspots in Ryedale, North Yorkshire, (19.9 per cent), Wear Valley (18.4 per cent), Easington (18 per cent) and Derwentside (17.7 per cent).

Fifty-three MPs have signed a Parliamentary motion demanding a “Competition Commission investigation into the relationship between wholesale prices and retail prices offered to consumers by the big six energy suppliers”.

Among the signatories are three MPs from the North- East, David Anderson (Blaydon), Jim Cousins (Newcastle Central) and Denis Murphy (Wansbeck).

Greg Clark, the Tory energy spokesman and Shadow Minister for Teesside, is also backing the campaign.

Last year, regulator Ofgem cleared the big six of collusion to fix prices, but the MPs believe they are kept artificially high because of the suppliers’ market dominance, even if they do not form an outright cartel.