Union activists and debt campaigners will stage a protest outside Government departments on Monday to call for increased funding for debt advice.

Unite said the demonstration outside the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions in London will highlight how communities remain in the “grip” of a cost-of-living emergency.

Unite has written to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to call on the Treasury to increase and expand funding of debt advice.

In the letter, Unite national officer Alan Scott warned of a “petrifying paradox for thousands upon thousands of families in the UK. As more plunge into desperate debt, the services to help them are falling dramatically”.

He added: “The evidence is compelling, there is an urgent need for HM Treasury to increase and extend the levy on identifiable businesses which are compelled to fund debt advice services.”

Amy Taylor, who chairs Greater Manchester Money Advice Group, said: “As a frontline debt adviser, I'm seeing a huge increase in demand for our help. People are coming to us in desperate situations, with more complex problems.

“Debt advice services make all the difference. We stop evictions, help to write off debts, find extra benefits and grants, and so much more.

“The work we do changes lives, but in the current crisis we're badly underfunded and there's just not enough of us.”