Top of Liz Truss' pile after being elected the new UK Prime Minister will no doubt be toppling the energy bill crisis and inflated cost of living.
Dual fuel bills for households are rising from the region of £1,300 to £3,500 a year between winter 2021 and winter 2022 - with regulator Ofgem recently announcing that their energy price cap would be soaring once more.
Truss is set to make an announcement this week, as allies say she is looking at support on the scale of the Covid furlough scheme - which set the Government back £70billion while supporting UK residents.
Read more: Liz Truss pledges to 'deliver, deliver, deliver' as she succeeds Boris Johnson as Prime Minister
The Mirror reports that despite this, the small-state right winger has repeatedly denied to disclose what she will announce, and warned: “Not all of those decisions will be popular.” However, a Truss ally told the newspaper: "I’m confident she appreciates the scale of the tsunami. I think it will be akin to what we did during Covid.”
Here are eight leading options for Liz Truss to successfully tackle energy bills, as well as the likelihood of each coming to fruition on a scale of one to ten.
1) Cutting National Insurance -
The PM has already pledged to reverse April’s National Insurance rise, which took the tax from 12 per cent to 13.25 per cent for those earning more than £12,570 per year. However, the richest tenth of people will gain some 235 times more than the poorest - £1,802 compared to £7.66 a year, the IFS think tank said.
This means that the move will do little to assist low-wage workers with their bills, as well as doing nothing for those out of work whatsoever. Ms Truss has claimed that it is 'fair' that her tax cut will help the rich so much more than the poor.
In a hardline Thatcherite stance she said: “To look at everything through the lens of redistribution I believe is wrong”.
Likelihood: 10/10
2) Scrapping green levies on bills -
Ms Truss has vowed to temporarily freeze the green levy - a charge added to energy bills to help fund investments in renewables. Describing it as a 'temporary moratorium', she said it would enable businesses 'to thrive while looking at the best way of delivering net zero'.
However, Paul Johnson, who is the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank, has dubbed the policy as 'somewhere between meaningless and pointless'. He also noted that it saves households a miniscule £11 over the course of the next three months.
Financial guru Martin Lewis, also said that removing the levies would be like 'sticking a plaster on a gaping wound'.
Likelihood: 10/10
3) Freezing prices -
Allies say that Liz is 'considering' a freeze on at least some Brits’ energy bills this winter - but the details are far from nailed down. One told the Mirror it was unlikely to be 'as crude' as Labour ’s £29bn six-month total freeze on all bills - a plan that involves halting bills for everyone at their current £1,971 - and bailing out energy firms to fund the difference.
However, Ms Truss has not ruled out an alternative plan drawn up by Scottish Power - where prices would be frozen solid for two years using loans. The crucial difference being customers would pay back the £100billion cost out of future bills for decades to come.
Likely Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng fuelled speculation by saying 'fiscal loosening' - more borrowing - will be needed. Other options are some kind of targeted freeze to those who need it - or capping wholesale energy prices, with the government funding the difference.
Likelihood: 8/10
4) Help for businesses -
Desperate small businesses are not covered by the price cap and are suffering unimaginable rises to sums over £20,000 for their energy bills. Any support package would surely need to help them.
While the shape of this is not confirmed, an ally of Ms Truss told the Mirror businesses would be helped too.
Likelihood: 8/10
5) Cutting VAT on energy bills -
Ms Truss's rival Rishi Sunak, who had criticised the policy of temporarily cutting VAT on energy bills, made a U-turn and backed the measure as he came under pressure to outline help. According to the IFS, removing the 5 per cent VAT on household bills would save the average consumer over £150 - far below the huge increase in the energy price cap.
Given Ms Truss is yet to set out specific proposals, it is not clear whether she will back the approach, but cutting taxes has been the centrepiece of her campaign for the leadership. There have also been reports the leadership favourite is examining the possibility of reducing overall VAT from 20% per cent to either 15 per cent or 10 per cent to relieve some pressure on households.
Likelihood: 7/10
6) Cash payments to vulnerable people -
People on Universal Credit are already getting £650 in payments, while pensioners get £300 and disabled people get £150 this winter. It’s thought Treasury officials drew up options to extend these payments as part of a range of possibilities for the new Prime Minister.
These are also the payments Rishi Sunak said he would increase if he won the Tory leadership race. Liz Truss has not been clear on whether this will be her way to support people. She’s attacked cash 'handouts' but also said she’ll help the vulnerable.
Likelihood: 5/10
7) Payment or discount to everyone -
All electricity bill payers in Britain are set to get a £400 discount off bills between October and March - and 80 per cent of households in England got £150 off council tax in April, but Liz Truss has strongly suggested more of this won’t be the answer for her.
She has said: “What I don’t support is taking money off people in tax and then giving it back to them in handouts. That to me is Gordon Brown economics.”
Likelihood: 1/10
8) Nationalising energy firms -
Unions and the Green Party have called for energy companies to be brought into public ownership amid spiralling bills and bailouts exceeding £2 billion. According to a recent poll by YouGov, almost half (47 per cent) of those who voted for the Conservatives at the 2019 general election want to see the nationalisation of the energy industry.
Among Labour voters, the figure is even higher, with almost four in five backing nationalisation, but Keir Starmer last month rejected the policy - to the dismay of those on the left. Reversing the privatisation of the energy sector is also perhaps the policy least likely to be embraced by the Tory leadership hopeful Ms Truss, who has often championed her values as a free marketer.
Likelihood: 0/10
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