Truss energy bill freeze will not come cheap and economic effects are unclear

With plans to reverse the increase in national insurance and scrap a rise in corporation tax, the costs of a Truss government will spiral higher still. Illustration: Guardian Design/PA/Getty Images

No handouts? Forget the promise of the Conservative leadership race; three days into her term as prime minister Liz Truss has unveiled one of the biggest-single packages of financial support for households in recent decades.

For a politician who sets great store by free market economics, not since the 1970s has there been an intervention on this scale in setting the prices consumers pay. This wasn’t though how team Truss branded the plan, instead calling it an “energy price guarantee” – not a fix, or a cap. And not a sniff of a new windfall tax to pay for it.