Boris Johnson’s government
Pledged not to make major policy or budget decisions, Downing Street is limited in what it can do, with Johnson himself largely absent over the summer. Last week, the prime minister attended a meeting with energy company bosses, after which Johnson said he would “urge” the power sector to keep bills low.
Liz Truss
The Conservative leadership frontrunner has turned her attention to tax cuts, pledging to reverse the recent rise in national insurance. The only special help for energy bills it has proposed is the suspension of green levies, which would save the average household around £150 a year. The Trust has not ruled out further aid but has repeatedly stressed its preference for tax cuts, although these would disproportionately help higher earners and do nothing for pensioners or those out of work.
Rishi Sunak
The former chancellor has partly pledged to back the bailout he announced while still in government, and said last week he would cut VAT on energy bills, costing around £5bn a year, by earmarking a similar amount again for targeted aid for poorer households.
Work
Under a plan formally announced late on Sunday, the party would spend £29 billion on a six-month program that would freeze energy prices at their current peak, before rising in October. This would help all households, even the wealthiest, but Keir Starmer argued it would bring certainty and help contain inflation, thereby helping people with other bills. It would be paid for in part by an expanded windfall tax on energy producers.
Liberal Democrats
In a similar plan – announced a week earlier – the party called for what party leader Sir Ed Davey called an “energy license plan”, which would freeze bills and also be part-funded by a wider windfall tax .
Greens
The party is due to formally announce its proposals later this week. They are expected to call not just for energy prices to be frozen but for them to fall to last October’s levels, before the price cap rises in April. The other element will be a proposal to permanently nationalize the main energy supply companies, allowing for a low price cap and helping long-term green energy efforts.
Gordon Brown
Announced last week, in the absence of a formal proposal from Labour, the former prime minister’s plan, detailed in the Guardian, would see a halt to any further increases in the price cap, price negotiations with individual companies over bill levels and the possibility of temporary nationalization for energy companies that couldn’t keep bills low, based on what happened to some banks after the 2009 financial crash.
