(Bloomberg) --
Prime Minister Liz Truss said she would set out her plan Thursday to help UK households and business facing soaring energy bills, as she ruled out funding the support package with a windfall tax on companies.
In her first Prime Minister’s Questions session in Parliament since formally taking office on Tuesday, Truss underlined her smaller-state, tax-cutting ambitions and warned that Britain could not “tax our way to growth.”
But she faced criticism from Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour party, who warned she had made a “political choice” in allowing energy firms to make excess profits while working people would “foot the bill for decades.”
Truss vowed to keep corporation tax low in order to attract more businesses to invest in the UK, and said she wanted to ensure the UK used more of its own energy supplies including oil and gas from the North Sea.
#PMQsTruss responds: "I believe it is the wrong thing to be putting companies off investing in the UK"
— Bloomberg UK (@BloombergUK) September 7, 2022
Her government is planning on capping average annual household energy bills at or below the current level of £1,971, Bloomberg reported Monday. The move would prevent household bills from jumping 80% in October, after regulator Ofgem said the price cap would rise to an average annual rate of £3,548.
Truss and Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng are also finalizing plans for a £40 billion package to lower energy bills for businesses.
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