Liz Truss to pay less than £2,000 for Downing Street energy bills this winter, Labour says

Next PM ‘won’t face the same concerns’ as public because of subsidised bills at No 11 flat

Liz Truss will pay less than £2,000 for her energy bills at Downing Street this winter if she wins the Tory race, according to analysis by Labour.

Ms Truss – widely expected to be named Boris Johnson’s successor today – is set to move into the flat above No 11 Downing Street on Tuesday.

But she “won’t face the same concerns” as ordinary Britons because her utility bills will be subsidised by the taxpayer, said Labour.

Electricity, gas and water at the No 10 and No 11 flats are covered by the state as a “benefit in kind” – with Ms Truss only set to pay tax on the perk of around £1,980 this winter.

The maximum amount of tax the next PM would have to pay in tax for receiving free energy is around £3,400 each year – regardless of how high the energy price cap soars.

Labour’s shadow exchequer secretary Abena Oppong-Asare said: “While Truss may be able to rest easy knowing her energy bills won’t be soaring, the least she could do is offer the millions of families reassurance and clarity on what her plans are.”

Ms Truss, and many other MPs with constituencies outside of London, already enjoy some protection from the energy price cap rise because of claims allowed on their second homes.

MPs charged taxpayers almost £200,000 for energy bills and other utilities at their second homes over the past year, according to analysis by The Independent. Campaigners said elected representatives were partly “insulated” from the financial pain ahead.

It comes as Ms Truss is said to be strongly considering freezing energy bills in some form in a bid to ease the burden on households this winter.

Senior figures in line for jobs in the Truss cabinet have been in discussions about whether the government could help energy companies meet the cost of buying wholesale energy over the price cap, or help arrange loans to cover the sums, according to The Times.

Businesses are said to be in line for additional help. The scale of the Truss energy support package could be “at least” around the £69bn cost of the Covid furlough scheme, one source told the newspaper.

Ms Oppong-Asare said Ms Truss had still only offered “vague promises and lukewarm words” as the cost of living crisis escalates.

The senior Labour figure added: “Families deserve a government ready to act and meet the scale of this national emergency. With Labour’s plan to freeze energy prices, households won’t pay a penny more this winter and we’ll be able to get a grip on this crisis.”

Meanwhile, Liz Truss’s plans to cut taxes to boost growth will further fuel inflation, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Paul Johnson has warned.

He told Radio 4’s Today programme that “simply cutting taxes, cutting National Insurance contributions, for example, is not a strategy for growth”, adding that it would “lead to not just extremely high borrowing in the short run, but also additional inflationary pressure”.

Senior Tory MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown urged his party to support whatever energy plan the next PM announces, amid speculation about potential for significant opposition to Ms Truss on the Tory backbenchers.

“I would hope that all my colleagues when Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, whichever of the two of them it is, announces a plan, that they will get behind it and support it,” he told the Today programme.