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New Prime Minister Liz Truss used her victory speech to pledge to “deliver on the energy crisis” by dealing with bills as well as supplies.<\/p>\n
A freeze on energy bills is understood to be one of a number of options being worked up in Whitehall to help struggling households to cope with the soaring cost of gas and electricity.<\/p>\n
Energy industry sources expect the government to back freezing bills.<\/p>\n
Ms Truss won out against rival Rishi Sunak with 57% of party member votes.<\/p>\n
“I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills but also dealing with the long term issues we have on energy supply,” she said.<\/p>\n
In response, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: “There can be no justification for not freezing energy prices.<\/p>\n
“There’s a political consensus that needs to happen. She needs to ask the question how she’s going to pay for that. Labour made it clear, it needs to be a windfall tax on oil and gas companies.”<\/p>\n
Ms Truss’s team is understood to have been working on a support package for energy bills “for weeks”. An announcement on what they will do is pencilled in for this Thursday.<\/p>\n
“Lots of measures have been considered, some have progressed and some have not” a source said. Her team have not denied they might introduce a freeze on energy bills.<\/p>\n
There have been multiple meetings between the government and the energy industry.<\/p>\n
Nadhim Zahawi, the current chancellor who is expected to stay on in another role, is understood to have been involved in conversations with industry leaders about the plan on a recent trip to the US.<\/p>\n
Business groups welcomed Ms Truss’s appointment but urged her to take “big bold action” to help firms who, unlike households, are not protected by an energy price cap.<\/p>\n
Federation of Small Businesses chairman Martin McTague said soaring energy bills “must be addressed urgently.”<\/p>\n
CBI director general, Tony Danker, said: “The exceptional circumstances we now face mean Government must play a central role in supporting our economy.<\/p>\n
*‘Difficult times’<\/b>*<\/p>\n
A freeze of the energy price cap – the limit on how much gas and electricity can cost in England, Scotland and Wales – would not necessarily require upfront government funding at the beginning.<\/p>\n
In an article for the Financial Times, Ms Truss’ close ally, business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said a government led by her will borrow more to help people this winter through “exceptionally difficult times” during the energy price shock.<\/p>\n
Mr Kwarteng – tipped to be named chancellor by Ms Truss – suggested he would look at the UK’s rules on government borrowing and spending – called fiscal rules – to see if they still work for the economy.<\/p>\n
The Treasury is allowed to suspend its fiscal rules in the event of a “significant negative shock to the UK economy”.<\/p>\n
However, Mr Kwarteng sought to reassure markets that the UK had space to borrow more and that it would be done in a “fiscally responsible way”.<\/p>\n
During the leadership race, Ms Truss said she would reverse a 1.25% rise in National Insurance and would suspend an increase in corporation tax – the measures will cost a combined \u00a330bn.<\/p>\n
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the National Insurance cut would be of greater benefit to higher earners rather than those on lower income.<\/p>\n
During an interview with the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Ms Truss said it was fair to give\u00a0higher earners more money back through tax cuts.\u00a0and recent Tory policy had failed to grow the economy.<\/p>\n
\u25aa\ufe0e Reports by BBC.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tory leadership: How Liz Truss was chosen as PM Liz Truss has been announced as the UK’s next prime minister, after winning the Conservative Party leadership. She was chosen by a vote among party members, who make up less than 1% of the UK population. *When does Liz Truss become prime minister?* Ms Truss was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":59651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5787],"tags":[4944,1438,5085],"class_list":["post-59650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-energy","tag-johnson","tag-truss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}