Separate figures compiled by the Liberal Democrats show that the proportion of households in fuel poverty is higher than the national average in the constituencies of eight Cabinet ministers, including Mr Johnson, Mr Sunak, and Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary. Almost 130,000 households are in fuel poverty in Cabinet ministers’ seats, according to the analysis.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, accused ministers of “turning a blind eye to families in their own backyard struggling with soaring heating bills.”

Senior ministers believe that a “failure of regulation” was partly responsible for the current energy crisis, which has seen the collapse of 26 energy companies since last summer.

One government source said: “Part of the reason we’re seeing this is that the market has not been regulated appropriately. That is something that needs to be looked at and dealt with.”

Last month, Citizens Advice claimed that Ofgem had “failed to act against unfit energy suppliers for nearly a decade”.

The energy price cap is expected to rise sharply from April, as firms attempt to recoup the costs of taking on customers from rivals that went under following a spike in wholesale gas prices.

Writing in The Telegraph, Sir Geoffrey, who is also a farmer and treasurer of the Conservatives’ 1922 committee, states: “The current severe spike in energy price is a result of increasingly relying on imports. I do not think the public will thank us if in a few years down the road there is either a big increase in prices or worse, a shortage of food. We need to get to a point where we produce over 50 per cent of the food that we eat in this country.”

In a 2018 speech, Michael Gove, the then environment secretary, said the new UK scheme would “provide better support for our farmers and land managers who maintain, restore, or create precious habitats for wildlife”, than the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which pays farmers based on the size of their land.