The Government has no plan for the cost of living crisis ahead - Andrew Vine

In common with friends and family, I’m doing everything possible to minimise energy usage. My home is fully insulated, nothing is left on standby and only rooms in use have the lights on at night.

But there comes a point where no more economies can be made on gas and electricity. The cooker has to be used, hot water is a basic necessity and the heating will have to be turned on when it gets really cold, however many extra layers I wear.

Worried though I am, there are going to be a lot of people in Yorkshire far worse off than me when the temperature drops. Their wages simply won’t cover energy bills combined with the eye-watering cost of filling the car with petrol and the ever-increasing bill for the weekly food shop.

At the weekend, a study by York University revealed that by January there will be 4.2m households – about 11.6m people – spending more than a quarter of their net income on energy.

A lot of them are going to be residents of our towns and cities. The coming recession and spiralling inflation are going hit this region with brutal force. Generally lower levels of pay than the most affluent areas of the country guarantees that, as do the pockets of deprivation that blight so many places as a result of decades of under-investment by successive governments.

Pensioners on fixed incomes are going to be squeezed especially hard.

Horrible thought though it is, I’ll bet that by this time next year this newspaper and website will be carrying reports of inquests in which coroners conclude that elderly people died of hypothermia because they were too worried about bills to put the heating on.

That’s how serious things are going to become. It is no exaggeration to regard what lies only weeks away as a national crisis because of the catastrophic effects for countless people. Yet the Government is doing nothing. It is simply not functioning in any meaningful sense.

On Friday, the Business Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, blithely announced that no action would be taken on the cost of living until a new Prime Minister is in place.

As the Bank of England warned of the worst squeeze on living standards in 60 years, the Prime Minister and Chancellor were sunning themselves on holiday.

Who is actually running the country is unclear. Presumably, senior civil servants are keeping the everyday functions of government ticking over, but with the Conservatives paralysed by the ever-dirtier scrap to succeed Boris Johnson, Britain is sliding inexorably into economic disaster without anybody attempting to get a grip.

Even the arrival of a new Prime Minister doesn’t offer much prospect of help for struggling households, especially if it is Liz Truss, the frontrunner to succeed Mr Johnson.

Against a backdrop of energy companies recording record profits, she is committed to scrapping the planned windfall tax on them to raise a pot of money that could be used to ease bills.

There is no plan. Simple as that. Nor is there any sense of urgency in dealing with the immediate challenges, let alone in trying to prepare for entirely predictable events almost certain to make matters worse by sending energy prices even higher.

Nobody in the Government appears to have taken much notice of their counterparts in Europe preparing for Russia restricting gas supplies to the West this winter as Vladimir Putin seeks economic reprisals against countries which have armed Ukraine to defend itself from his aggression.

In the past week, Germany and Spain have both introduced measures to reduce energy consumption to conserve what reserves they have – and protect their populations against further price rises, even though they are already paying far less than we are in Britain.

Have ministers forgotten the international scramble for personal protective equipment during the pandemic, when shiploads were diverted to the highest bidder, irrespective of their original destination?

We can expect that again with tankers carrying liquefied gas when Putin turns the taps off to mainland Europe, which he will, sending international prices even higher.

The parallels between the response to the early stages of the pandemic and the lack of action on energy are striking. The Government was caught flat-footed and slow to respond then, and they are showing every sign of repeating the same mistakes.