Headstones placed outside of parliament to show stark reality of cold deaths

Activists have erected hundreds of cemetery “headstones” made from insulation boards outside parliament to warn a failure to tackle cold homes is costing thousands of lives.

Greenpeace estimates more than 70,000 excess winter deaths in the UK were linked to living in cold, damp housing conditions in the decade since the coalition government slashed support for home insulation measures.

In a protest at what it described as the “needless and shocking” deaths from living in cold homes, the green group installed headstones in Victoria Tower Gardens and an eight-metre-long funeral wreath reading “cold homes cost lives”.