The dividing line has been drawn: who will pay for the UK’s energy bills crisis?

Liz Truss will today announce her plan to make sure households are not driven into poverty (anymore than they already are) by sky-rocketing energy bills. Plans reported over the past few days suggest that the government will cap annual gas and electricity bills at around £2,500 for two years – at the cost of around £150bn.

The main dividing line that has emerged between Labour – which called for a freeze on bills funded by an expanded windfall tax last month – and the Tories is: who pays? Labour would make the windfall tax retrospective, while sources close to the Prime Minister suggest that her proposal would be funded by general taxation – rather than making oil and gas companies foot the bill using the unexpected profits they have made off the back of spiralling energy prices.

The ideological gap between Labour and the Tories was plain to see at Prime Minister’s Questions. The session saw fewer personal attacks than when Keir Starmer clashed with Boris Johnson, and a greater focus on the political, as Truss determinedly rejected taxing oil and gas giants to help struggling households. “The real choice – the political choice – is who is going to pay,” Starmer told parliament. “Every single pound in excess profits she chooses not to tax is an extra pound on borrowing that working people will be forced to pay back for decades to come.”

Starmer has positioned himself well. Support for oil and gas companies picking up the tab, rather than households paying any more on their bills, is high. The Labour leader has put himself on the right side of the political divide – and the ‘who pays’ attack line is resonating.

But voices within his party are pushing the Labour leader to go further. Our exclusive polling last week found that 87% of members back the energy system being run in the public sector. Labour for a Green New Deal and Momentum will push for public ownership of energy to be passed as Labour policy by members and trade unions at Labour’s annual conference later this month. While both say Labour is right to push for a freeze, they described the move as a “sticking plaster on a broken system” and argued that the party must go further “to meet the public mood”.

In other news, MP Nick Brown has had the Labour whip suspended after a complaint was submitted to the party’s independent complaints process. The nature of the complaint is not known. And Labour for a New Democracy has published a new report, warning that Labour’s constitutional plans will not deliver on its objectives unless they include a switch to a form of proportional representation for general elections. Writing for LabourList this morning, Caroline Osborne and Joe Sousek wrote: “Devolution has not mitigated the UK’s equality problem. Unless the centre is reformed, nor will further devolution.”