LABOUR’S plan for an energy price cap would have saved average consumers £1,149 since 2010 and would save them £142 in the coming 12 months, the party said today.

If it won power, Labour would introduce an immediate emergency price cap to ensure that the average household energy bill remained below £1000 a year while it put in place what it regarded a fairer system for bill payers.

“If this policy had been in place since 2010, it would have saved the average consumer £1,149 and £142 per year going forward on their energy bills,” said the party HQ.

It insisted Britain’s energy market was broken; one in ten households were in fuel poverty yet the directors of the Big Six energy companies had paid themselves a combined £12 million last year.

The party noted how the Competition and Markets Authority had said that customers had been overcharged £2 billion every year and yet the Big Six had just increased energy prices by eight to 15 per cent.

It claimed that the Government’s response to the majority of households facing crippling energy bills was simply to tell them to shop around for the best deal.

But, the party stressed that 70 per cent of Big Six customers remained on their supplier’s most expensive tariffs; only five per cent of people intended to switch supplier in the next 12 months and it was those who struggled most with crippling bills who were least likely to switch.

Labour pointed out how before the election, Theresa May had promised to knock £100 off energy bills for 17m customers but had since abandoned the pledge and had only said they would take action to protect “vulnerable” customers.

At the weekend, it emerged that 53 Tory MPs, including 20 former ministers, including one-time party leader Iain Duncan Smith, called on the Prime Minister to reinstate the energy cap promise.

“Working people are suffering rip-off price hikes by the Big Six energy companies whilst at the same time many bosses continue to carry on paying themselves obscene amounts. That’s the Tories’ rigged economy in action and they will do nothing about it,” declared Rebecca Long-Bailey, the Shadow Business Secretary.

“The next Labour Government will take the tough action needed on the energy companies. We’ll impose a hard price cap on energy bills that will immediately end rip-off price increases and we’re prepared to take on the Big Six to do it. Labour is standing up for the people against the elite,” she added.