Liz Truss, the frontrunner in the UK Conservative Party leadership race, has weighed in on fears of looming gas rationing this winter amid the raging energy crisis.
When asked at the last hustings event on Wednesday whether she could rule out energy rationing, Truss replied: “I do rule that out. Yes.”
As the UK Foreign Secretary faced former chancellor Rishi Sunak in London’s Wembley arena, she also rejected the proposal of a further windfall tax to pay for cost of living support. Truss pledged to Tory members that she would not introduce any new taxes if she makes it to No 10.
“Yes. No new taxes,” Truss reiterated.
According to Truss, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, who would be her new chancellor under her premiership, would look at more household support.
On the issue of support for businesses, she added:
“You’ll have heard me talking about supply of energy… So, I will be looking across the board to make sure we’re increasing supply and therefore dealing with the root cause of the issue rather than just putting a sticking plaster on, but I would absolutely be looking to act on business energy costs.”
Truss also vehemently denied she had done “nothing” over the past few weeks as part of Boris Johnson’s “zombie government” while the cost of living crisis escalated and inflation soared to its highest rate for 40 years.
Sunak, who made his final pitch to party members before voting closes on Friday, refused to rule out rationing gas as a measure in a contingency scenario, saying:
“The challenges we face with this crisis are significant. Many European countries are looking at how we can all optimize our energy usage, that is a sensible thing for us to be doing as a country.”
Sunak argued in favor of a windfall tax to pay for extra household support, introduced during his time as chancellor, saying that it was "absolutely the right thing to do when the energy companies are making billions of pounds of profits.”
He also promised to reappoint an ethics adviser after two previous ones quit under scandal-mired outgoing PM Boris Johnson.
“I will lead a government that is conducted competently, that is conducted seriously, and with decency and integrity at the heart of everything that we do,” Sunak stated.
Sunak added that he had “not chosen to say the things that people may want to hear,” but rather outlined “the things I believe our country needs to hear.”
Conservative party members are to wrap up voting by 5pm on Friday, with a new PM to be announced on 5 September. Recent polls suggest the Foreign Secretary has a lead of about 30 points over her rival.
‘Reasonable Worst Case Scenario’
The Foreign Secretary’s outright dismissal of gas rationing was labelled as “crazy” by Gavin Barwell, Theresa May’s former chief of staff.
He tweeted that there was a looming risk that there might not be enough energy to go round in winter, adding that the government ought to consider rationing non-domestic use “so that vulnerable people don’t find themselves without heating.”
The UK government had earlier published a “reasonable worst case scenario.” According to it, if cold weather in the winter months coincided with gas shortages, both businesses and consumers could face black-outs unless energy rationing were implemented. The National Grid projected, based on a winter with average cold spells, that the first half of December might be the highest risk period. The FTSE 100 company, which runs Britain’s gas mains, has warned that gas rationing may be the only option.
This comes as the cost of living crunch intensifies, with the average household energy bill forecast to soar to more than £4,000 a year from January, according to consultancy Cornwall Insight.
Ever since Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 and several sanction packages imposed by Brussels against Moscow backfired, the energy situation in Europe has deteriorated considerably.
In the UK, since 1 April, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) raised the allowed maximum annual electricity bill limit from £1,400 to £2,000 ($2195 to $2440), with the next revision scheduled for October 2022. As for annual inflation, it rose to a new 40-year high of 10.1 percent in July from 9.4 percent in June, the UK Office for National Statistics revealed.
21 August 2022, 08:41 GMT