Truss could strip ‘high earners of £400 energy bill support’ – follow live

Bill Bullen, chief executive of Utilita Energy, said it is “not a great time to have a lame duck government in No 10”.

“It would just be helpful to be working with the team that is actually going to implement whatever mechanism it is, because we’re running out of time here,” he told Times Radio on possible measures ahead of October’s price rise.

He said it was time for “a proper cap on prices, especially for low income households” – suggesting that a social tariff should be introduced on a permanent basis

Tory leadership contender Rishi Sunak has said the stabbing of Sir Salman Rushdie should be a “wake-up call” for the West about the threat which Iran still poses.

Britain should designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation following the brutal attack on Sir Salman Rushdie, Mr Sunak added.

The former chancellor said Iran’s response to the stabbing bolstered the case for proscribing Tehran’s elite military unit, which acts as a protection force to the regime.

He also suggested that the nuclear deal that lifted sanctions against Iran could have reached “a dead end”.

Business minister Greg Hands, a Rishi Sunak supporter, said his favoured candidate is prepared to commit “big” sums to help with the cost of living this autumn.

“He is not denying the fact that there is going to be a big rise and we’re talking big numbers here,” he told Times Radio – denying the idea Sunak was “showering money around”.

Sunak has committed to an extra £10bn in support through VAT cuts in energy bills and extra direct payments. “We need to take exceptional actions. That is what he’s saying, while still being fiscally responsible,” said Hands.

Tory MP Ranil Jayawardena, a Liz Truss backer, said she was wise not to commit to any extra support until she is “in office”, should she be announced the winner on 5 September.

“Projections are just projections at this point,” he told Sky News. “Let’s see what the situation actually is after this leadership contest is over.”

Civil servants will have to trawl through social media accounts of guest speakers – including going back up to five years – to see if they have ever criticised government policy, as part of a new vetting process, the Financial Times reports.

The new Cabinet Office rules cover the vetting of outsiders coming into the department to take part in “learning and development” events and urge managers to carefully check the backgrounds of such guests.

Allies of Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg said the policy, which took effect this week, was “very sensible” and should be implemented straight away.

“There have been far too many examples recently where essentially extremist speakers have been invited to speak to civil servants and staff networks,” said a colleague of Mr Rees-Mogg.

It’s been a funny week in Birmingham. It started with the climax of the Commonwealth Games, Jess Phillips writes. The sun shone and royals, dignitaries, athletes and volunteers danced along with rock and pop royalty. Hearing our voices and seeing our streets on national TV in a carnival of pride and excellence was intoxicating. We felt as if anything was possible, the future was bright.

As always though there is a tale of two cities. Away from the fanfare, as the week ran its course the news broke that for people already feeling much more than just a pinch, energy bills will rise to over £4,000 a year. The confidence shot in the arm that the Games gave us was going to need a booster programme fast.

Read the full voices piece here

A large majority of Conservative Party members still prefer Boris Johnson over Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss, according to new poll.

The latest Opinium survey shows Truss has a healthy lead over Sunak in the Tory leadership race, ahead 61 per cent to 39 per cent among Tory members.

But the poll shows signs of regret at the PM’s political demise over the Partygate scandal, and an apparent lack of enthusiasm for either of his would-be successors.

In a head-to-head contest between Johnson and Truss, 63 per cent of Tory members would opt for the caretaker PM, compared with 22 per cent support for the foreign secretary.

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A group of 70 charities and community groups signed a letter calling on the two Tory leadership candidates to commit to a doubling in the £1,200 package of support going to the most vulnerable households.

Dan Paskins from Save the Children, said: “At the very least, the government should double the emergency support package announced in May to ensure families are shielded from a catastrophic winter.”

Paul Kissack, chief executive at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which organised the letter, said: “Planning for a substantial support package needs to start immediately. Without it, vulnerable people will face a catastrophe on a vast scale when winter sets in.”

Adam Scorer, chief executive of National Energy Action charity, said the Treasury’s reported plan to reduce the energy price cap by £400 this January “doesn’t seem proportionate” to the crisis faced by families.

“It doesn’t seem like a plan yet,” he told Times Radio. “It won’t avoid the costs for people on the lowest incomes and quite honestly, it doesn’t seem proportionate to the cost of living crisis that many are facing and fearing.”

He added: “Government, prime ministerial candidates and opposition parties are only just waking up to the scale of the intervention that is required … They have to wake up.”

Liz Truss could strip high earners of the £400 autumn energy bills support, a treasury secretary has suggested.

Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury and a key backer of Ms Truss, said it was “odd” that wealthy people would also benefit from the handout, and if made prime minister, the foreign secretary would examine whether this could be blocked.

“As Conservatives, we ought to surely believe in targeting taxpayer money as best we can so that we actually achieve the best value and keep the burden on the exchequer as low as we can,” Mr Clarke told the Sunday Telegraph.

“It is not an ideal outcome, putting it very mildly, that people who don’t need it are receiving quite substantial sums of money from the state. That is not, frankly, a targeted package, is it?”

Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi is thought to have asked Treasury officials to draw up plans to cut gas and electricity bills by an extra £400 in January through a new lending scheme for energy providers.

It comes as Labour joined the Liberal Democrats in calling for the energy price cap rise – expected to hike annual bills to almost £3,600 – to be frozen in October.

While Treasury officials are not proposing to freeze the price cap rise this October, they are considering ways to bring January’s price cap down by about £400 per household, according to the Sunday Times.

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