MPs Asked: 'What Could Possibly Be More Important Than Alleviating Poverty?'

The long-awaited Fuel Poverty Bill has been blocked by MPs, after so many of them failed to turn up that a vote could not be taken.

With only 10% of Tories and 7% of Labour politicians bothering to put in an appearance, the quorum of one hundred MPs was missed by eleven - stalling the progress of Lib Dem MP David Heath's bill, which aims to bring homes up to current energy-efficiency standards, introduce social tariffs for vulnerable households and reinforce the government's legal duty to end fuel poverty.

The Federation of Private Residents Association called the MPs' mass absence "a crying shame", and asked why so few had turned out to support to support the important bill.

MPs coughed and went red in the face when it turned out that they had been preoccupied with examining the details of their expenses claims, in case they included any educational films that they and their partners may have been scrutinising at home, with commendable diligence, in order to gain a deeper understanding of what might be causing Britain's soaring teenage pregnancies.