AN awkward clip of Keir Starmer pledging to freeze energy bills under a Labour government has re-emerged on social media as the price cap is set to rocket by 13%.
The clip shows the Prime Minister speaking to a mother worried about her finances on the Jeremy Vine show will he was leader of the opposition where he says he "would not allow" energy prices to rise if he came to power.
The regulator Ofgem has announced it will raise the energy price cap by 13% from July due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
The jump on July 1 will equate to a rise of £18 a month for the average household using both electricity and gas, with households seeing an increase of 24% on their gas bills and 5% on their electricity bills.
In the clip being shared, Starmer speaks to a mum called Ella who is worried about paying for energy while looking after a young child and not earning "that much".
He says: "When you hear the government and energy companies talking about £3500 possibly for energy bills going up to £4000, I suspect like many people you shudder at that, because these are huge amounts of money, which is why we say under a Labour government we would freeze those prices, we wouldn't allow them to go up Ella because what you're already paying is going to go through the roof and I don't know how you would cope with that."
Starmer goes on to say the country "can't keep walking past this problem" and his party would have a "clear and simple" policy to freeze bills and make oil and gas companies pay for it.
He went on: "When I was growing up my Dad was a toolmaker, he worked in a factory and my mum was a nurse, and we didn't have huge amounts of money and I remember struggling with the bills and the telephone being cut off and things like that and so I know first-hand what it feels like to sit around the kitchen table and say 'we just can't actually pay all this' and I know millions of people are in that state of mind at the moment, they're worried sick.
"That's why I thought it was very important for us to have a very clear, simple policy to freeze your bills. We won't allow that to happen and we'll get oil and gas companies from their excess profits to pay for that freezing of the bills.
"It's simple, straightforward, it's a political choice. I think it's right we do something about it because we can't just keep walking past this problem."
The clip has been widely shared across social media with people calling the Prime Minister a "liar" who "can't be trusted".
UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said on Wednesday the rise in the price cap is "because of a war we did not choose" and claimed that "easing that burden is our number one priority".
Following the announcement, Scottish Energy Minister Stephen Gethins has said that Scotland’s energy must be in Scotland’s hands.
“People across Scotland are already struggling to afford their energy bills – and today’s confirmation of a further price hike will be extremely concerning,” he said.
"We are one of the most energy rich nations in the world yet pay some of the highest energy bills in Europe – it just does not add up.
"In an energy rich country like Scotland, nobody should be struggling to pay their bills – and the fact that so many are shows the fundamental problem with having control of Scotland’s energy resources in the hands of Westminster governments."
