GAS suppliers will be urged to pledge £25m to a campaign to cut the number of deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning at a meeting next month.

A working group set up by the Government has been told that between £22m and £25m must be spent to hit the target of a 20 per cent cut in deaths by 2010.

The group accepts there is virtually no chance that laws will be passed before the next election to impose a compulsory levy on suppliers - a proposal made by health and safety chiefs in 2001.

That means the advertising campaign - a demand of The Northern Echo's Silent Killer campaign, which was launched after the death of a North-East student - can go ahead only if gas companies agree to act voluntarily.

The hard-hitting campaign, to be carried on television, radio and by leafleting, would aim to counter widespread ignorance about the threat posed by carbon monoxide (CO).

Householders would be urged to install CO detectors - which would be gradually driven down in price - and have boilers, fires, water heaters and cookers serviced every year.

The adverts would focus on private-sector tenants, parents with children and older people, all thought to be most at risk from CO poisoning.

But the working group - of gasfitters, local authorities, landlords and the Health and Safety Commission - admitted the support of suppliers and manufacturers was far from guaranteed.

Its strategy report said: "It has to be recognised that the gas industry players are highly unlikely to fund the level of expenditure identified on a voluntary basis.

"In the circumstances, a strategy has to be developed that will reduce expenditure and achieve the objective of reducing incidents and fatalities."

Some members of the group have thrown doubt on whether the £25m will be money well spent.

They say "only" 20 people a year die from CO poisoning, which means a 20 per cent cut would save as few as four lives a year - at a cost of £6m a life.

But Margaret Brennan, whose daughter, Anne, 19, died in digs in Durham City in 1995, urged gas companies to recognise "you can't put a price on a life".

Mrs Brennan, of Houghton-leSpring, Wearside, said: "People need to realise the dangers because at the moment they think it couldn't happen to them."

Fraser Kemp, Labour MP for Houghton and Washington East, a longstanding campaigner for better awareness of the threat, urged gas suppliers to make a major contribution.

He said: "An advertising campaign would focus attention on how we can save the lives which are needlessly lost because of this evil gas."