Tory leader candidate Liz Truss has pledged to make an announcement on crippling energy bills this week if she is named the next PM – although she has refused to elaborate on what she will be expected to announce.
It comes after she brushed off fears the poorest are facing "Armageddon". That means millions of Brits facing a plunge into fuel poverty will be holding their breath for days, despite the frontrunner pledging “immediate action on energy bills and energy supply.”
And there are fears her help won't touch the sides with Ms Truss saying: "Not all of those decisions will be popular but I will be honest about what we will have to do," The Mirror reports.
Ms Truss - the favourite to be named the next PM at 12.30pm on Monday and confirmed by the Queen at Balmoral on Tuesday - said her announcement will come before an emergency budget, tipped for September 21. Yet she refused to say what her help will be - and has spent weeks attacking cash payments as “handouts”.
Grilled by the BBC's new show, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, she said: "If I’m elected as Prime Minister, within one week I will make sure there is an announcement on how we are going to deal with the issue of energy bills and of long term supply to put this country on the right footing for winter."
Yet asked repeatedly to say what it'll be, she added: "I’m not going to go into details of what a putative announcement would be before." Worryingly, she indicated her “precise plans” may have to be overhauled.
“Before you have been elected as Prime Minister, you don't have all the wherewithal to get the things done,” she said. “This is why it will take a week to sort out the precise plans and make sure we are able to announce them."
She also appeared to row back on indications she could review the Bank of England's interest-rate setting powers, saying: "I think it would be completely wrong for me as a politician to say what I wanted interest rates to be and to countermand the Bank of England." Comedian Joe Lycett - who was also on the show - sarcastically said Ms Truss's answers were "very clear".
Labour's Emily Thornberry said people "are desperate", adding: "It's extraordinary that we've had a leadership election that has gone on for weeks and weeks, and yet the two leadership candidates cannot give a specific answer to the one question, frankly, that everybody wants the answer to. Which is what the heck is going to happen to my bills? What is going to happen?
"You're going to have the majority of the country in fuel poverty unless something is done." In a bizarre moment, Ms Truss said her plans to cut National Insurance were "fair" - while confronted with a graph that showed they will give the poorest just £7.66 a year and the richest £1,801.89.
Liz Truss said her plans to cut National Insurance were "fair" - while confronted at a graph that showed they will give the poorest just Ms Truss - who has pledged to reverse a rise that happened in April - said: “It is fair. We promised in our manifesto that we would not raise National Insurance.”
In a stark warning she will not always prioritise helping the neediest, she said: “To look at everything through the lens of redistribution I believe is wrong”. And on the economy more generally she added: "I don't think we should be predicting a sort of Armageddon scenario. I think we are in a good position to deal with what are very very tough challenges."
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph she added: “Sticking plasters and kicking the can down the road will not do. I am ready to take the tough decisions to rebuild our economy.” Ms Truss said she would appoint a council of economic advisers to help guide her and her chancellor.
And the crisis will be the focus of her “very short” first address from Downing Street on Tuesday after she jets back from Balmoral, the Times reported. But campaigners, Labour and economists warn her plan to undo National Insurance and corporation tax rises will not touch the sides for the poorest.
Household bills are set to rocket from £1,277 a year last winter to £3,549 a year this winter - and far higher for businesses, who warn they face financial ruin. And according to The Sunday Times, police are braced for "civil unrest" and rising crime like burglary this winter as cost pressures grow.
Ms Truss wrote in the Sunday Telegraph: "I recognise that many of the growth measures we take won't have an immediate impact. But it is vital we get started now and build a better economy for the future and pay down our debt as a country and provide the future for our children.
"There will be tough decisions to be made, and I am prepared to make those tough decisions as prime minister.”
