Help the poor, Darling warns energy giants

A week ago after the fuel companies rebuffed government pressure on them to give £100 heating vouchers to needy people, the Chancellor was using a speech to the TUC to say: "Energy companies must face their responsibilities to help people in this difficult period. So we'll do more. And they must do more."

His Brighton speech, a draft of which has been seen by the Standard, was designed to please the trade unions, who are putting intense pressure on the Government to impose a windfall tax on the energy sector.

Replying to their demands, Mr Darling was expected to say he "is listening" but neither ruling it in or out. However, he is said to be cool on the idea.

On Thursday, Gordon Brown is due to launch the delayed fuel policy package, which was watered down after the energy firms refused to dig deeper into their pockets. "No-one should go cold this winter," he said.

The Prime Minister and Chancellor will tonight sit down at a private dinner with leaders of the biggest unions hoping for more money to bale Labour out of a financial crisis. With donations from millionaire backers largely dried up after the "cash for peerages" affair, Labour now relies on union money for £9 out of every £10 it spends.

However they faced anger over the Government's two per cent pay ceiling on public sector workers. One union leader said: "I don't think the hotel will dare put out big bowls of bread rolls."

Mr Darling stood firm on pay in this speech, saying in the draft version: "Everyone in the country, in this hall, knows these are tough times. But familiesand businesses would face even tougher times in the future if we throw away the stability that we have worked so hard to secure."

He went on: "In the private and public sectors, pay rises must be consistent with achieving our inflation target. Otherwise every penny in pay rises will be very quickly swallowed up by higher prices. We all remember the jobs losses that followed in the past once inflation takes a grip."

Losing a grip on economic stability would also put at risk money for investment in jobs, schools and hospitals, he said.

Mr Brown pleased union activists before tonight's dinner by promising more help for the poor. In an article for The Monitor, he declared: "We need to be honest with ourselves: while poverty has been reduced and the rise in inequality halted, social mobility has not improved in Britain as we would have wanted.

"A child's social class background at birth is still the best predictor of how well he or she will do at school and later on in life. Our ambitions for a fairer Britain cannot be satisfied in the face of these injustices."

Among the union leaders at tonight's dinner will be Unite's Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley and Mark Serwotka.

Mr Serwotka, of the Public and Commercial Services union, said: "The Government must start listening and acting. There are a lot of angry people here."

Keith Sonnet, deputy general secretary of Unison, which has 1.3 million members, said: "We want more flexibility over public sector pay and what he is going to do about the economy, for instance a windfall tax on the private utility companies which are making such huge profits."