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Gordon Brown says energy firms unable to offer lower bills should be temporarily re-nationalised

Former PM calls for energy price cap to be scrapped and new lower prices renegotiated by government

Energy companies that cannot offer lower bills should be temporarily brought into public ownership, Gordon Brown has said, in a stark challenge to political leaders on the day Liz Truss signalled a climbdown on help for households.

Writing for the Guardian, Brown called for the energy price cap to be cancelled and for the government to negotiate new lower prices with the companies, comparing the situation to the 2009 banking crisis where some banks were temporarily nationalised to protect consumers.

He warned the time for action was slipping away and major decisions had to be made within days. “Time and tide wait for no one. Neither do crises. They don’t take holidays, and don’t politely hang fire – certainly not to suit the convenience of a departing PM and the whims of two potential successors.”

Brown said there were urgent decisions that could not wait until the end of the Tory leadership race. Those include:

• Cancelling the energy cap before the official announcement on 26 August
• Agreeing October payments for vulnerable households
• Finding urgent new supplies of gas and storage
• Voluntary energy cuts like Germany’s to prevent blackouts

He said spending should be paid in new “watertight windfall tax” on oil and gas and a new tax on the high levels of city bonuses which he said were pushing up wage inflation. Those measures could raise £15bn, he said, enough to give nearly 8 million low income families just under £2,000 each.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...e-nationalised