Britain needs a cost of living task force – but still Rishi Sunak sits on his hands

Remember when Rishi Sunak was a political superstar? In the heat of a global crisis – the Covid-19 pandemic – the chancellor surprised many with the swiftness of his actions (seemingly donning his orange jumpsuit to make like The Flash, DC Comics’ resident speed demon).

He got on the phone and called in the bosses of the TUC and the CBI. The end result of the meetings that took place was the furlough scheme, which staved off a jobs crisis, a potential repossession crisis, and any number of other econo-nasties that would have followed on from there.

It was a pricey, but inspired, piece of policymaking, proof of what active government, working in tandem with outsider expertise can achieve.

Having largely sat on his hands – beyond a few half-hearted measures to reduce the impact of the energy price shock on consumers – it’s time for him to dust down his metaphorical spandex again to deal with the cost of living crisis.

The calls for action have been growing louder, with Monday being no execption. They are only going to increase in volume.

“Things have passed my worst expectations,” said Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s former chief economist turned head of the Levelling Up Taskforce, getting the ball rolling on LBC. He thinks high inflation could be with us for years.

The British Chambers of Commerce, meanwhile, called for an emergency budget to cut VAT on energy bills for businesses, the reinstatement of free Covid tests to ease labour shortages, and a reversal of the controversial national insurance rise, which hits both employers and individuals.

Scottish Power CEO Keith Anderson, added to the mix too. He said the de facto loan, which will give every household £200 off energy bills in the autumn, is in need of a boost. He wants 10 million households to get a grand off their bills, which would be paid back over 10, rather than four, years.

His call is not without a certain amount of self-interest. Energy suppliers are currently running scared. They fear a wave of defaults, with bills set to soar again ahead of the winter (which is when demand rises). And they are right to. It could get ugly.

Sunak’s torpor in the face of all this seems, as I’ve written before, to be motivated by the most cynical of politics: the desire to hold back his financial pre-election giveaway to boost the sagging fortunes of the scandal-racked government in which he serves.

This is extraordinarily shortsighted. By then it may be too late. The current situation is bashing the Tories’ (largely undeserved) reputation for economic competence while cementing their reputation for callousness and cruelty. A winter marked by those defaults, corporate collapse, cold and hunger will not easily be forgotten.

Ugly numbers just keep on coming in, with the latest being that a couple of million Britons can’t eat every day. Some of them will be children.

Sunak, meanwhile, remains the biggest dog in a cabinet that contains a number of millionaires. Not a good look. Spell “out of touch”.

Addressing the current crisis is more complicated and involves a greater number of moving parts than even the pandemic, despite the unprecedented nature of that shock. It demands the creation of a cost of living task force.

Who should be on it? The obvious place to start would be the groups who worked so well together last time, so the CBI and the TUC.

Representatives from the energy industry would be necessary, even if they might have to accept some unpalatable ideas (like a windfall tax on profits). A consumer body, perhaps Which?, and an expert on poverty (Joseph Rowntree?) would also be wise. Poverty is not a subject Sunak appears well versed on.

That said, the make-up of such a working group is less important than that it is set up in the first place. Sunak needs help. He also needs to understand that if he doesn’t do something, the blowback will be severe.

Horrible though it may seem, we might be just at the beginning of this. Haldane certainly appears to think so. Early intervention would be wise, even if earlier intervention would have been better still.