Liz Truss has doubled down on her refusal to offer meaningful help to people with rising energy bills this winter, despite a forecast that these could top £4,200 a year from January and rise further during 2023.
Truss, the runaway favorite to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister next month, has already said he does not want to hand out “handouts” to people struggling with bills, preferring to prioritize tax cuts.
Although he has not definitively ruled out further direct aid, questioned on Tuesday, the Foreign Secretary would only confirm plans to reverse the recent rise in National Insurance and temporarily suspend green fees on energy bills.
Critics of his policy warn that the tax cuts disproportionately help the better off and offer no assistance to pensioners or those out of work, while green taxes only contribute around £150 a year to the average bill.
“What is vitally important at the moment is that we get economic growth going,” Truss told reporters on a visit to Huddersfield in West Yorkshire.
“Right now we have the highest taxes in the last 70 years. That’s why I believe in lower taxes, to boost growth, to encourage companies to invest, and so there will be more money in people’s pockets.”
Asked if he ruled out any further help for energy bills, Truss replied: “What I promise is that from day one, people will have lower taxes. They will also have lower energy bills, because I will put a temporary moratorium on the green energy rate. But what we need is a growing economy.”
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Earlier on Tuesday, consultancy Cornwall Insight said it expected the energy price cap, the maximum amount suppliers can charge for each unit of energy, would rise so that average annual bills would reach £4,266 a year during the first three months of 2023, rising to £4,426 in the second quarter.
The consultancy now expects the cap to reach £3,582 from October, up £200 on its last forecast. The limit is now updated every three months, instead of six, as before.
Truss’s insistence on tax cuts rather than other forms of help for households has become a major dividing line in the leadership race.
A campaign spokesman for her rival, former chancellor Rishi Sunak, said Truss was “divorced from reality” on the issue, adding: “Liz’s plan will not touch the sides of most families of Britain this winter and pensioners will get no help whatsoever.”
In an op-ed for the Times on Tuesday, Dominic Raab, the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, who supports Sunak, said Truss’s September emergency budget did not adequately address the scale of the energy crisis . to “an electoral suicide note” for the Conservatives.
Pressed on her plans in Huddersfield, Truss repeatedly refused to commit to any help beyond repealing NI and suspending the green tax, saying: “I’m not going to comment on exactly what will be in the budget. What I am clear about is that from the first day I will reduce taxes”.
Asked about Raab’s comments, she said: “What I care about is that Britain succeeds. I don’t agree with these portents of doom. I don’t agree with this decline talk.
“I think our country’s best days are ahead of us. What I will do, if elected as Prime Minister, is keep taxes low, grow the economy, unlock the potential across the UK. That’s what I I mean”.