Handing a couple of hundred billion pounds of government money to energy companies to subsidise every British household and business for the next 18 months is a spectacularly stupid policy.
But that’s what Liz Truss has just done.
Even at the lower end of estimates, the plan will cost the state more than the pre-pandemic annual cost of the entire NHS. Given that it pegs everyone’s energy bills at the April 2022 level – already unaffordable for many – the Truss universal subsidy will leave 6.5 million households in fuel poverty and millions more still facing mounting debt. Even at April prices, the head of Citizens Advice told MPs on 6 September, the day Truss walked into Downing Street, the independent charity was seeing “record levels” of people simply unable to afford to use any power at all.
