Tory voters say Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak lack solutions to energy crisis

Conservative voters reject both Liz Truss’s and Rishi Sunak’s plans to tackle the energy crisis ahead of massive autumn price hikes, an exclusive poll for The Independent reveals.

Fewer than half of Tory supporters believe the contenders have solutions for the turmoil that will result from the increase in the average yearly gas and electricity bill, which will soar to £3,549 in October and is predicted to top £5,300 in January.

Worryingly for Ms Truss – who is the overwhelming favourite to replace Boris Johnson – just 48 per cent of Tories back her as the candidate to ease the cost of living emergency. This figure puts her only slightly ahead of Mr Sunak, who is backed on this measure by 44 per cent.

Among the wider public, 57 per cent are “not confident” that the foreign secretary has a plan for the economy – more than the 55 per cent who reject the former chancellor’s ability to act, according to the survey by Savanta Comres.

The pessimism for the future is revealed as the current chancellor has piled pressure on the rivals by warning that even people earning around £45,000 – 50 per cent more than the average wage – will need significant help to manage their energy bills.

“My concern is there are those who aren’t on benefits,” Nadhim Zahawi said, after suggestions that Ms Truss may be looking to offer targeted support only to the poorest. “If you are a senior nurse or a senior teacher on £45,000 a year, you’re having your energy bills go up by 80 per cent, and [they] will probably rise even higher in the new year – it’s really hard.”

Cornwall Insight, the data analysts who came close to forecasting the exact level of the October cap, warned of further big price hikes next year, saying: “There seems to be no ceiling for where they should go.”

One senior Tory, Robert Halfon, backed a growing campaign for a so-called “social tariff” for lower-income groups, which would provide ongoing discounts to those worst affected and would be funded by general taxation.

And the Labour chair of the Commons business committee, Darren Jones, predicted that the incoming government would be forced into offering across-the-board handouts because it lacked the data and IT systems to target help effectively.

The Independent poll also lays bare the public’s frustration over the focus of the two-month leadership contest and the way it has dragged on as the cost of living crisis grows.

Both candidates have declined to set out detailed policies for cutting bills, in a contest that has instead focused on tax cuts as well as the adoption of hostile positions on asylum seekers and climate change.

And both candidates have attacked solar and wind farms, which are needed to boost renewable energy, while vowing to step up efforts to deport asylum seekers. In addition, Ms Truss has backed grammar schools and fracking.

Almost six in 10 respondents (57 per cent) say the campaign has not focused on the issues most important to them, while only 33 per cent say it has. And some 62 per cent say the contest has focused too much on Conservative Party members, rather than the wider public, while just 15 per cent say the balance is right.

Even Conservative voters strongly reject the substance of the debate: 60 per cent say it has tilted too far to the priorities of the party’s grassroots rather than those of the wider public.

Almost two-thirds of voters (63 per cent) say that the contest – featuring a dozen party hustings, the last due to take place next Wednesday – has been too long, with only 20 per cent saying it has been the right length.

In the vacuum left by the absence of policy – as Mr Johnson rejected pleas to gather the candidates together in order to thrash out a stopgap solution – almost half of voters say they are cutting back on spending on food, fuel and clothing.

The poll reveals that 56 per cent of voters believe Mr Johnson was wrong to sit out the issue and leave it to his successor, including 46 per cent of Conservative supporters.

Labour’s £29bn plan to freeze energy bills over the winter is the most popular of the policies so far set out to ease the pain of soaring costs, with the support of 79 per cent of respondents. But the policy more likely to be adopted by either Ms Truss or Mr Sunak – targeted government support for the worst affected – is not far behind, at 69 per cent.

Some 64 per cent of voters back tax cuts, Ms Truss’s flagship policy, despite experts pointing out that they will overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and offer little help to the poor.

Mr Halfon, the education committee chair, warned of local businesses in his Essex seat unable to pay energy bills that are almost tripling, and schools unable to pay their staff. “What the government therefore needs to do is to introduce a social tariff for the vulnerable and those who are ‘just about managing’,” he told GB News. “And we also need a small business tariff, because although big businesses can absorb this, small businesses cannot.”

Mr Jones said the government had “backed themselves into a corner” by leaving it so late to introduce a package of help. “They have to be able to get money out of the door quickly to help people before October, and Labour’s policy is the best way of doing that,” he argued.

Robert Buckley, of Cornwall Insight, told Times Radio that prices could “go up and up”, warning: “The market prices have been getting higher and ever higher. Prices are absolutely incredible.”

Savanta ComRes interviewed 2,234 UK adults aged 18+ online between 19 and 21 August. The results were weighted to be representative of the population.