Both candidates have come under scrutiny this week for their plans to help households in the cost-of-living crisis.
Customers face more pain next year if annual energy bills soar to more than £5,000. Ofgem, the energy regulator, may have to cap the price at £5,038 a year for the average home because of high gas prices, said Auxilione, an energy consultancy.
Experts said the cap could reach £4,467 in January, in which scenario the average household would pay £571 for energy that month. Auxilione warned that the cap was likely to remain above £4,000 next year, saying not much could be done to reduce prices directly.
Boris Johnson is holding talks with bosses on Thursday about ways the energy sector can offer relief to households. The prime minister told them that high prices risked damaging the sector, but no new policy steps emerged.
It emerged this week that Treasury officials were preparing options for Mr Johnson’s successor on how to deal with the cost-of-living crisis, including increasing the existing windfall tax on energy companies.
But on Thursday, Ms Truss made it clear she opposed the move, appearing to protect energy firms that have posted rising profits. Rising energy costs have seen oil and gas companies enjoy huge profits, with BP recently announcing a tripling of underlying profits to £6.9bn in the latest quarter.
Ms Truss said: “Firstly, I don’t think profit is a dirty word and the fact that it has become a dirty word in our society is a huge problem. Because in this audience today we have hundreds of people running businesses and making money.
“Of course the energy giants, if they are in an oligopoly, should be held accountable and I would see to it that they are held strictly accountable.
“But the way we go around the word profit as if it’s something dirty and evil… we shouldn’t be doing that as Conservatives and we’re actually playing into the hands of people like Jeremy Corbyn who want to completely undermine our way of life. “
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