Boris Johnson says UK energy-bill support package is not enough
Boris Johnson has acknowledged that the package of support to help people pay surging energy bills is not enough, as the split deepens between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss over how to deal with the crisis.
Amid forecasts that energy bills could hit £5,000 a year by next April, the prime minister made clear that he expected his successor to act.
Asked if the current package of £400 off bills, rising to £650 for vulnerable households, was enough, Johnson said: “No, because what I’m saying what we’re doing in addition is trying to make sure that by October, by January, there is further support, and what the government will be doing, whoever is the prime minister, is making sure there is extra cash to help people.”
Johnson said earlier this week that he was sure his successor would offer more help with the cost of living, but Truss has held off spelling out how she would act and repeatedly dismissed the idea of “Gordon Brown style” “handouts”. Her stance appears to have slightly softened, with her campaign suggesting help would be forthcoming.
However, Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary and one of Truss’s key allies, said on Friday that the cost of bills would be “nowhere near” the levels predicted by independent analysts.
Defending Truss, Coffey said: “She is absolutely an MP who knows what it is like for struggling households and that is why, quite rightly in a considered way, once Ofgem comes up with their price cap … all of government … and it will be a decision for the new prime minister to enact what changes could be made.”
Sunak announced a £10bn package on Friday designed to help with energy bills this autumn, saying he could be open to “some limited and temporary one-off borrowing as a last resort to get us
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