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British Prime Minister Liz Truss will announce Thursday how her new government plans to ease the burden of soaring energy bills that have left people and businesses across the U.K. facing a bleak winter.
Truss is due to make a statement in the House of Commons and is expected to impose a cap on bills that are skyrocketing because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the economic aftershocks of COVID-19 and Brexit.
The announcement, on Truss’s second full day in office, comes after a summer in which the government refused to say how it would respond. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was not able to make major decisions after announcing in July that he would resign. Truss, who won the Conservative Party contest to replace Johnson as leader, declined to announce her plans before she was in office.
Truss, a free-market conservative, has said she favors tax cuts over handouts, but has been forced to act by the scale of the crisis. She is expected to cap domestic energy bills, which otherwise will hit 3,500 pounds ($4,000) a year for the average household next month, triple the cost of a year ago.
