Help IS on the way for households preparing for huge energy bills this winter, a Tory minister has insisted. The energy price cap will rise again - sending the average household bill rocketing to £3,549 from October - regulator Ofgem announced on Friday (August 26).
It means the yearly gas and electricity bill for the average household will rise from from £1,971. Energy bills will be around £2,300 more than a year earlier.
The news prompted an outcry. The announcement came amid the worsening cost-of-living crisis, with petrol and household item prices soaring and taxes and interest rates going up.
Households have been told to brace for a tough winter, with families having to come up with the money to pay bills or face living in the cold.
This morning (Bank Holiday Monday) Victoria Prentis, a minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, told Times Radio: "It's right that people need help and I'm really here to try to reassure that the government is making plans to help people as they will need it with energy bills this winter."
She added: "I would like to reassure that there are many, many different plans being worked on by civil servants and ministers at the moment, and whoever comes in as the next Conservative leader and our next prime minister will have the background work ready and will be able to make those difficult choices very quickly and before it's needed.
Ms Prentis, a supporter of Rishi Sunak, argued that the nationalisation of Britain’s energy industry or freezing the price cap were not the solution, but that targeted support was needed.
"What we need to do is not necessarily help everybody in the country in the same way," she added. "We need to make sure that while we will be providing some general support, most of our support goes to those really vulnerable households, particularly pensioners, people with disabilities, for example, people who really don’t have other options."
Alistair Darling has argued the government must take bold action to tackle spiralling energy prices to avoid a 'lethal cocktail' of recession and high inflation.
The Labour former chancellor told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: "You need something significant and substantial and you need it now, because people’s bills are going to start coming in in a few weeks time.
"If you don’t do that then you have the risks that I’ve been describing, that the economy will slip into recession with all that entails.
"And when you’ve got that on top of the fact you’ve got inflation already at very, very high levels we haven’t seen since the 1970s, this is a lethal cocktail, which is why it needs bold action taken by the Government now, not fiddling around with small measures that frankly won’t make any difference at all."
He added: "Frankly the stuff that’s been announced so far might have passed muster earlier this year. It simply won’t do now. You need something far more substantial than that unless you are willing to see substantial damage being done to our economy."
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