LONDON (Bloomberg) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown said his government is ready to provide more help for households as the economic slowdown deepens, and held out the prospect of an end to soaring food prices.

Voters are deserting the ruling Labour Party as rising fuel, food and mortgage costs eat into disposable incomes. Mr. Brown has already extended help to the elderly to pay for heating and pressed banks to pass on interest-rate cuts to mortgage holders.

"We are dealing with a trebling of oil prices, we are dealing with doubling of food prices, and we are dealing with the credit crunch," Mr. Brown said at a monthly press conference in London yesterday. "Yes we will consider further measures. We are trying to do what we can to help hard-pressed households."

Mr. Brown refrained from spelling out measures the government might take, saying that pressure on household budgets may ease as the pace of food-price inflation slows.

"The forces that we are having to deal with are rising food prices, which I believe you might see some change in that over the next few months, the rise in the cost of money and most importantly the rise in oil," Mr. Brown said.

Economic pressure is damaging Mr. Brown's standing with voters. A YouGov plc. poll published yesterday showed the Conservative Party had the support of 47 percent of voters, compared with 25 percent for Labour and 18 percent for the Liberal Democrats.

Forty-six percent of people predicted a recession in the next 12 months, compared with 31 percent in June, YouGov said in its poll of 1,800 people, conducted last week.

Fuel and food prices lifted inflation to the fastest pace since at least 1997 in May, making it harder for the Bank of England to add to its three interest-rate cuts since December. Policy makers last week left the benchmark rate is five percent, the highest in the Group of Seven industrialised nations.

Mr. Brown yesterday said he will discuss with US presidential candidate Barack Obama what measures need to be taken internationally to moderate the price of oil and food and ease the squeeze on lending by banks. The two are due to meet in London later this week.

"We're all dealing with the same global challenges," Mr. Brown said. "We'll discuss what we can do about oil prices and food prices. I look forward to having a discussion with him on all these things."

Mr. Brown welcomed Banco Santander SA's agreement to acquire UK mortgage lender Alliance & Leicester plc. for £1.26 billion ($2.6 billion).

"We have always operated an open economy," Mr. Brown said.

"We have benefited from the fact there is a diversity of ownership in the British economy. We benefit from having an open economy.

"We have made it very clear we are open to investment both in our financial sector and our energy sector. That would be good for the British economy, not bad."