Rishi Sunak Says It Would Be 'Silly' To Help Families With Their Energy Bills Now

But the chancellor said more assistance will be provided to householders in the autumn if the cost of living continues to soar.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak leaves 11 Downing Street
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak leaves 11 Downing Street
Aaron Chown via PA Wire/PA Images

Rishi Sunak has said it would be “silly” for the government to give people more help with the energy bills right now.

The chancellor said it was better to wait six months until the autumn, when the new energy price cap is set, to see whether costs were still soaring.

However, he insisted he was ready to come up with more support then if it was required.

Sunak made his comments during a 25-minute interview on Mumsnet.

He was asked by a disabled person whether the government would offer more support to cover energy bills.

The chancellor said they had already unveiled a £9bn package to bring down the cost of electricity and gas, as well as council tax bills.

He added: “Now I know people are anxious about this and wondering if they are going to go up even more, and I have always been clear from the beginning we will see what happens.

“And depending on what happens to bills then, of course, if we need to act and provide support for people, we will.

“But it would be silly to do that now or last month or the month before when we don’t know exactly what the situation in the autumn will be.

“So I’d say we’ll see where we are with that if we need to do more.”

Boris Johnson has called on his ministers to come up with ideas on how to bring down the cost of living.

However, Sunak has insisted that any new measures should not cost the Treasury any more money as he seeks to tackle the mounting public debt.

The PM chaired a meeting of the cabinet yesterday at which he impressed upon them the need to help people keep more of their money.

But his spokesman said: “He underlined the importance of not feeding in to further inflation rises and emphasised that the UK is currently spending £80 billion servicing our debt.”

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has proposed that car MOTs take place every two years rather than annually, while the government is also keen on reforming health and safety rules to bring down childcare costs.

However, a plan to slash tariffs on things like imported grain in order to reduce food prices has led to a cabinet split.

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