The Huddersfield Daily Examiner’s fight to increase awareness of carbon monoxide poisoning has been taken to the House of Commons by local MP Barry Sheerman.

Mr Sheerman questioned the Government about what action would be taken to combat the dangers of carbon monoxide in response to the paper’s Silent Killer campaign.

He is hoping that a full Commons debate on the subject will take place and has also called for gas suppliers to provide carbon monoxide detectors for free.

Examiner editor Roy Wright said: “Barry Sheerman has been a big campaigner for us – he’s been very vocal and a big supporter of the campaign.”

As part of the campaign, the paper gave away 1,000 British Gas detectors in just two hours.

Hundreds of readers descended on the paper’s headquarters to snap up the alarms in a show of “unprecedented” demand.

Roy said: “It’s easily the best response we’ve had to a campaign of its kind and we are in talks with British Gas to provide another offer.”

Roy said the campaign – which was formulated by the Examiner’s head of content Jenny Parkin and marketing executive Andrew Cooke – was in response to three local deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning – the first of which was a 10-year-old boy who died in February 2004. In March this year a Chinese couple were also killed by the gas.

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