Thousands of people have gathered in cities across the UK to protest over the cost-of-living crisis.

The demonstrations come a day after a long-feared hike in energy prices, an increase in National Insurance, council tax and other bills all came into force.

The jump in household bills is the biggest in living memory and has seen costs rocket by 54% to just under £2,000 a year.

Unions have complained that Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spring statement last week did nothing to allay fears about soaring bills and inflation, with the TUC calling for an emergency budget to help families.

The People’s Assembly said yesterday’s lifting of the energy price cap will create an ‘impossible choice for many’, to eat or heat.

The campaign group said in response to the crisis a protest was planned for outside Downing Street in London, with similar events in towns and cities across the country.

A spokesperson for the campaign group said: ‘Public outrage over the cost-of-living crisis is growing fast, and our response is gaining momentum.’

Away from the capital, demonstrations were held in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Cambridge, Glasgow, Hull, Ipswich, Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Portsmouth, Preston, Redcar, Sheffield and Southampton.

Ahead of speaking at the London demonstration, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, said: ‘With rising fuel, food and energy bills, the soaring cost of living is pushing millions into poverty, and the disgusting treatment of the sacked P&O workers needs urgent action from the government.

‘Demonstrations will be taking place all over the country, with thousands of people coming together to demand redistribution of wealth and power and decent wages for all, as well as justice for P&O workers.’

Laura Pidcock, national secretary of the People’s Assembly, said: ‘What people are experiencing is intolerable.

‘No matter how patiently we explain that Government inaction over soaring energy and fuel costs and sharply rising food prices is deepening poverty, misery and hunger, it is met with at best indifference and at worst more of the same.

‘The truth is they are so wedded to the economic system we have, comfortable with a hands-off approach, that even when markets are obviously failing us, they continue with business as usual.

‘We tell them about children going hungry and the Government shrug, politically speaking.’

The large scale demonstrations come as a cabinet minister said it is not possible to ‘completely nullify’ the pressures on energy prices.

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said the government is ‘looking… across the board at what we’re doing with the public’s money’, and will ‘put in the support that we can, as and when we can’ to ease the sting of rising prices.

Speaking to Sky News, he said: ‘I know, even this week, where I live we’re on oil-fired heating, I’ve seen that change directly in the price of oil – and actually the ability to get it.

‘At home, my family went a few days where we had no oil, just waiting for the suppliers and seeing the very big increase in price on that.

‘We can’t completely nullify the impacts of the global markets and global pressure, for example, on energy, which is obviously the main focus at the moment for most people.

‘But we will put in the support that we can, as and when we can, as I say, looking… across the board at what we’re doing with the public’s money.’

Labour has repeatedly called for a windfall tax on oil and gas companies, which it says could generate funds to help struggling families and pensioners with energy bills.

Mr Lewis such a levy may sound like ‘an attractive option’ but it ‘won’t necessarily have the impact on global prices that people think it will’.

‘I do understand why people look to that… Labour have been making this point for a while. What they’re not able to answer… is the reality of what is happening in the energy market,’ he said.

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