New PM to Promise “Breathing Space” With Energy Bills in His Sights
Mr Burnham is expected to use his first speech to pledge “breathing space” on the cost of living. A package is anticipated among his first acts, with his team examining a radical energy-bills overhaul, drawn up by the thinktank Nesta, that could cut a typical household’s bill by about £130 a year and make running a heat pump cheaper than a gas boiler. Nothing has been announced or delivered as of this morning.
The Nesta plan would shift some policy levies off electricity bills into general taxation and reform gas standing charges, at a cost of around £3.2bn a year. Mr Burnham has committed to Labour’s manifesto “tax lock” — no rises to income tax, VAT or national insurance — and to his predecessor’s fiscal rules, which constrains how he funds any giveaway and leaves an autumn Budget in play. He has said there is “some room… for movement on tax” within the manifesto. Watch whether costly measures survive contact with the Treasury or slip to the Budget.