'Gordon Brown today faced a backlash from the Labour movement after signalling that the government will not be making cash payments to low-income families to help them with the cost of rising fuel bills. Tony Woodley, the joint leader of the Unite union, said that the prime minister ought to be forcing energy companies to contribute to a subsidy programme because people were going to be in "very, very serious trouble" when they had to pay the bills to heat their homes in the winter'

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