Liz Truss is to announce a vast support package to deal with surging energy costs as her allies and officials discuss plans for a gas and electricity price freeze with industry leaders.
The foreign secretary is expected to be confirmed as Britain’s next prime minister today and will move rapidly to set out a new economic policy. The package to deal with growing energy bills this winter is understood to be on the scale of the Covid furlough scheme.
Senior Tories lined up for appointments in Truss’s cabinet have been told “in no uncertain terms” not to scorn the idea that energy bills could be frozen.
Industry sources said that a price freeze for consumers was “the only conversation that anyone was having with the government”, including discussions involving Kwasi Kwarteng, who is
expected to be Truss’s chancellor.
“The plan is to introduce some kind of artificial price cap for consumers combined with a mechanism for reimbursing suppliers,” one source said. “Plans are reasonably well advanced and involve not just civil servants but also ministers lined up for jobs by Truss.”
The level of the price cap has not been set and businesses, particularly hospitality and retail, would need separate support, the source added.