In The Dark? Truss's Energy Price Plan Has One Problem – How To Fund It

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

- By Richard Partington

She is a politician who sets great store by free market economics, yet 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.

After weeks of waiting for Truss to say how she would keep the lights on this winter, we are still in the dark about how much it will cost .

The prime minister did not give any figures in her statement or explain how it would be funded. A price tag of £150bn ($174bn) has been suggested by government sources. But it will be left up to her new chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, to spell out the precise details in a statement due later this month.