ALEX Salmond has blamed the Union for people struggling with their energy bills.

The Alba leader said fuel poverty would never end under the current constitutional settlement, as the UK Treasury would always exploit Scotland’s energy wealth.

Domestic gas and electricity bills are set to rocket from this month, as the price cap is raised around £700 per home, with a second rise likely in October.

However the many rural homes in Scotland reliant on oil for heating face far bigger rises.

Price rises for many businesses will also be worse as they are not protected by a price cap.

The global demand for gas and oil, plus the war in Ukraine squeezing supply, had driven wholesale energy prices to unprecedented levels in recent months.

Despite the international forces at work Mr Salmond said only independence could change the situation in Scotland.

On a local election campaign visit to Inverness today, the former First Minister will state: “Scotland remains the only country ever to have discovered massive energy resources off her shores, oil, gas and now renewables, and to have gotten poorer -  that has been the price of the Union.

“It is a scandal that so many of our people and communities in the Highlands and Islands are experiencing unprecedented levels of fuel poverty, in some cases such as the Western Isles, running at over 50%, while Scotland’s massive energy resources are being syphoned off to meet the UK’s energy security and to boost Sleekit Sunak’s Treasury coffers.

 “Only with Independence can the people of Scotland take full control of our massive energy resources into our own hands, lift our people out of fuel poverty and invest in the clean, green and affordable energy sources of the future. Then and only then can we end the indignity of fuel poor Scots living in energy rich Scotland.”

Fuel poverty is defined as a household being unable to maintain an adequate standard of living despite spending more than 10 per cent of its income on fuel.