Kwarteng says there are no plans for energy price cap for businesses : CityAM

Kwasi Kwarteng has suggested he will not be implementing an energy price cap for businesses, despite warnings from the private sector that many manufacturers could go bust without one.

The business and energy secretary said he was “talking all the time with industry about what the best way forward is”, but said an energy price cap was not currently on the cards.

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Kwarteng has met in the past week with a number of bosses from large industrial firms, who have sounded warnings they could go broke due to surging natural gas prices.

Households benefit from an energy price cap, which ensures that families are not overly affected by swings in energy markets, however there is no similar mechanism for the private sector.

Some manufacturers that use high amounts of energy are calling for a price cap for businesses to ensure they can keep operating.

When asked about this prospect on Sky News, Kwarteng said: “I can’t come on your programme and say we are going to have a price cap, because we’ve got to try and work out what the nature of that support might be. On the consumer side we’ve got an energy price cap and on the industry side we’ve had measures where we do support industries [that are] heavy electricity users.

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“What I am very clear about is that we need to get them through this situation, it’s a very difficult situation. Gas prices, electricity prices are at very high levels right across the world and I’m speaking with government colleagues, particularly in the Treasury, to try and see a way through this.

“We’ve already got supports in place and we’re looking at ways we can help industry.”

Gas prices have risen by more than 250 per cent since January, which has seen 12 challenger UK energy firms go bust this year.

This has put serious pressure on many businesses that are high energy users as they experience soaring bills.

Bosses from high-intensive energy industries – such as paper, glass, cement, lime, ceramics, chemicals and steel – met with Kwarteng last week to discuss the crisis.

The Energy Intensive Users Group (EIUG) chair Dr Richard Leese said three solutions were put forward at the meeting – an energy price cap for businesses, the distribution of network costs and emergency measures to “prevent lasting damage to very expensive plants and equipment” if a factory has to shut down.

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UK Steel chief Gareth Stace told Channel 4 News: “What we’re asking Kwasi Kwarteng today to do on wholesale prices is just to step in, to alleviate that pressure in the short term, just like in, say, Portugal or Italy. Their governments are already investing many billions of euros, to help their industries and the UK government has yet done nothing.”