Polanski’s Greens want universal energy bills bailout for Brits

LONDON — Green Party Leader Zack Polanski says the British government should freeze energy bills this summer, as high costs caused by conflict in the Middle East threaten to hit families.

In a speech at the left-leaning New Economics Foundation think tank Wednesday, Polanski said ministers should not allow the energy price cap — a limit on the amount homes pay for their energy — to increase when it is recalculated for July.

The government should instead “guarantee right now that it will not allow energy bills to rise beyond the April-June price cap,” Polanski — whose party is riding high after a by-election victory last month — said. 

But the plan has already drawn attacks from the Greens’ political opponents, keen to paint the left-wing challenger outfit as profligate.

The last time the U.K. government intervened with a universal cap on costs was in 2022, when then-Prime Minister Liz Truss froze average bills at £2,500 per year, after energy prices rocketed on the back of Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

That universal move ended up cost a whopping £23 billion. Polanski said his policy, which would freeze bills at £1,641 for the average household, would cost £8.4 billion, paid for in part through taxing high-polluting oil and gas firms in the North Sea. 

Government ministers have already stressed that homes covered by the price cap would not see their bills rise before July.

But they are under pressure to get support in place for people exposed to bill spikes once the price cap runs out, after wholesale gas prices surged as a result of the Iran conflict. 

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said last week that the Treasury is looking at “targeted options” to help the poorest households. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday the government is not “ruling anything out.” 

The Resolution Foundation think tank said this week that the government should “resist pressure to rush out updated versions of old support schemes like the universal blank cheque approach of Liz Truss.”

Polanski insisted targeted interventions “are conversations we should have but they’re not things we could bring in immediately” 

He said if that means bailing out “wealthy people,” then the government should overhaul the tax system, too. Polanski used his speech to repeat calls for a wealth tax as well as bringing capital gains tax in line with income tax. 

“The number one priority has to make sure that people can afford their energy bills today and tomorrow,” he said. 

Labour Party Chair Anna Turley said Polanski has the “wrong answers on the economy.”  

“Respected economists have sounded the alarm over the Greens’ ‘catastrophic’ plans to print money, which would hammer working people and their living standards,” she argued.