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Keir Starmer to call for immediate freeze on rising energy prices

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Iain Dale during “Iain Dale’s All Talk with Sir Keir Starmer” (PA)
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Iain Dale during “Iain Dale’s All Talk with Sir Keir Starmer” (PA)

Keir Starmer will on Monday call for the energy price cap to be frozen at its current level of £1,971 as UK households facing surging energy bills.

Sir Keir will make the intervention after Cornwall Insight predicted the price cap to rise £3,582 in October before then increasing again to £4,266.

A think-tank has warned households on low incomes will have to reduce their spending power by three times as much as high income households in order to afford their energy bills this winter.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will call for the price-cap freeze as he details how his party will pay for the measure, according to The Observer.

Specifics of the measure were not available, though Sir Keir wrote elsewhere that the party aimed to end energy “injustice”.

“We would end the injustice that sees people on prepayment meters paying over the odds for their energy,” he wrote in The Sunday Mirror.

“And we will set out how we would help people directly this winter in the coming days.”

It comes after Sir Keir on Friday said it is “nonsense” to claim his party has not been leading on the cost-of-living crisis despite Gordon Brown claiming that crises “don’t take holidays” after the Labour leader and Boris Johnson both spent time out of the UK over the last few weeks.

Seperately, charities and organisations across the UK have called on Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak to address “the cost of living crisis”.

They said “So far this year, nearly three-quarters of low-income households receiving universal credit or other means-tested benefits, many of them working families, have been forced to go without at least one essential. This means people having to skip meals or not being able to heat their homes properly.

“Many of our organisations work directly with these families and are becoming overwhelmed, too often unable to provide the support so desperately needed.

“This situation cannot be allowed to continue. As the prospective leaders of this country, we urge you to act now to demonstrate the compassion and leadership needed to tackle this issue head on.”