ABOUT 20 people are protesting fuel price hikes in front of the British Gas offices in Cowley this morning.

Protesters say that the firm’s 10 per cent price increases, announced earlier this month, are “crippling”, on top of an 8 per cent increase in 2012 and a 16 per cent increase in 2011.

Last year the firm took more than £600m in profits, £11m of which was paid in bonuses to chief executives.

Protestor Andy Jones, a spokesman for Fuel Poverty Action Oxford said: “Millions of us are having to choose between feeding our children and feeding our gas and electricity meters, which force the poor to pay more for energy and cut off our heating when we can’t pay.

“Meanwhile energy companies like British Gas spread the lie that ‘green taxes’ are to blame for hiking their prices when the real problem is the privatisation of our energy and the sky-rocketing cost of dirty fossil fuels.”

He said :”A combination of publicly owned and community controlled renewable energy – alongside mass home energy improvements – is the way to bring bills down.”