UK leader Liz Truss pledges to cap soaring household energy bills
2022.09.08 08:43
UK leader Liz Truss pledges to cap soaring household energy bills
Britain’s new prime minister, Liz Truss set out her plan in parliament on Thursday to help households deal with astronomical energy costs this winter, saying bills would be capped at $2,875 per household per year for the next two years.
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For a leader who has decried the “tax and spend” policies of her own government, Truss was acknowledging how crippling the mounting energy bills could be — not only on low-income families, but small businesses such as pubs.
Truss did not say how the government would pay for these costs — which could rise to $150 billion.
But the leader of the opposition Labour Party Keir Starmer rose in the House of Commons to confront Truss, saying these bills will ultimately be paid for by the taxpayers.
This is, in part, is because Truss has ruled out imposing a windfall profits tax on energy companies, which stand to reap billions.
And so the debate in the House of Commons clearly laid out the economic battles to come, not only in Britain but Europe, over who shoulders the soaring cost of energy in the coming year.
Truss squarely put most of the blame for energy spikes on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine.
“Putin is exploiting this situation by weaponizing energy supplies as part of his illegal war in Ukraine,” Truss told the lawmakers.
But Truss also conceded that Britain — and her Conservative Party which has been in power for 12 years — is partly responsible and vowed to boost domestic energy supplies.
She vowed to push forward construction of nuclear power stations — including faster-to-build smaller plants — and to open up more of the North Sea to more drilling for oil and gas.
