Prime Minister Liz Truss has today unveiled her plan to keep energy bills down. She announced to the House of Commons that a typical household will pay no more than £2,500 a year on energy bills for the next two years.
The Ministerial Statement regarding the announcement states: “HM Government is acting to protect British households from the spiralling costs of energy. The Energy Price Guarantee will give people certainty with their bills. The EPG will apply from 1 October and will discount the unit cost for gas and electricity use.
This guarantee, which includes the temporary suspension of green levies, means that from 1 October a typical household will pay no more than £2,500 per year for the next two years. This will save the typical household £1,000 a year. It comes in addition to the £400 Energy Bill Support Scheme.”
Truss also announced that households who do not pay directly for gas or electricity will receive a support fund and businesses will get equivalent support from a six-month scheme.
Support doesn’t come cheap
The cost of the plan is not yet known to MPs as Truss announced that it would be revealed in the Treasury statement later this month.
Labour leader Keir Starmer has criticised Truss’s approach to this. He said: “This support does not come cheap and the real question before the House today, the real question the Government faces, the political question is who is going to pay?
“The Treasury estimates that energy producers could make £170 billion in unexpected windfall profits over the next two years.”
Starmer announced that Labour want to tax windfall profits, but Liz Truss opposed this. He went on to say: “Every pound the government refuses to raise in windfall taxes is a pound extra of borrowing.”
