Tory MP accuses Starmer of ‘blatant lie’ over energy bills claim
A Tory backbencher has lashed out at Sir Keir Starmer for a “blatant lie” after he praised a drop in the energy price cap set by Ofgem.
Katie Lam, who has weighed in on issues ranging from growth to immigration, said energy bills under Labour had spiked since it took to power in mid-2024.
She followed the party line in highlighting a rise in the energy cap from £1,568 to £1,641, though she went further than Tory leader Kemi Badenoch by accusing the Prime Minister of lying.
Lam also said part of the Budget policy to strip energy subsidies from household bills had been to move it to general taxation.
In a video on X, Starmer said: “I know that energy bills are a real cause of concern. They’ve been too high for too long and I promised that we would bring energy bills down, and I meant it.
“Today, because of the decisions that this government made at the Budget, the price cap for energy bills has come down by £117.”
Lam responded: “This is a blatant lie.”
“In July 2024, the energy cap was £1,568. It’s now £1,641. Bills have gone up under this Prime Minister.”
“The £117 he talks about has just been moved from your energy bill to your tax bill.”
“And yet he claims he’s saving us money. It’s outrageous.”
Starmer’s government accused of ‘sleight of hand’
Reeves’ move to alter energy pricing was a key policy announced in the Budget. Forecasters at the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) have suggested it could reduce inflation by 0.5 percentage points.
Tory officials have hit out at the policy as a “sleight of hand” by Starmer’s government, claiming it was still far off a Labour promise to cut energy bills by £300 through its net zero drive.
The opposition party have also said the price cap included an increase in network costs partly driven by funding transmission cables and pylons from wind farms.
The party said high energy prices were “solely a cost arising from net zero and the amount of offshore wind farms the government are building to meet Ed Miliband’s clean power 2030 target”.
Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said: “Experts have said that energy bills may reach the highs of the energy crisis by 2030 because of all the fixed costs that Ed Miliband is putting onto the system. We need to make electricity cheap.
“The Conservatives are the only party with a cheap power plan that would cut electricity bills for households and businesses by 20 per cent at no cost to the taxpayer.”
Recent research by the Adam Smith Institute has separately found UK industrial electricity prices to be 82 per cent higher than that seen in France.