Pound rises on Liz Truss’ £170bn plan to freeze energy bills – live updates

Good morning.

Energy bills will be frozen for UK households under a new plan that could cost £130bn.

Liz Truss has finalised plans for a new system that will prevent the sharp rise in the energy price cap from October. The policy could cost as much as £130bn over the next 18 months, Bloomberg reports.

The price cap was due to jump 80pc to £3,548 a year from October. But the new measure will see the price cap effectively scrapped.

Instead, the Government will set a new price paid by households. That’s likely to be at or below the current price cap of £1,971.

5 things to start your day 

1)  JP Morgan plans to move work from Germany to London as blackout fears grow The Wall Street bank is preparing a raft of emergency measures so that it can continue trading if there are power outages this winter. 

2) TalkTalk weighed down by debt as Sir Charles Dunstone seeks sale The budget broadband provider has been warned by its auditor that presenting its accounts on a going concern basis is increasingly risky. 

3) Instagram fined €405m for sharing children’s email addresses and phone numbers The number of affected children was not revealed but is thought to be in the millions given the EU-wide nature of the breach.

4) Aston Martin sells shares at 78pc discount in bid to shore up business – Luxury car marque plans to raise £576m to pay down some of its debt

5) I’d have to charge £100 for a steak to cover my energy bills, says Gaucho chief The chief executive said the incoming prime minister must act quickly to help businesses which are seeing their profits wiped out. 

What happened overnight 

Hong Kong stocks edged up slightly in the first few minutes of trading this morning, with the Hang Seng Index ticking up 0.2pc.

The Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.3pc, while the Shenzhen Composite Index on China’s second exchange added 0.2pc.

Tokyo stocks opened lower in subdued trade, with few fresh market-moving events after a holiday for US bourses. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 0.2pc.

Coming up today

Financial: NCC Group (full-year results), Ashtead Group, Capricorn Energy (Interims),  Berkeley Group, DS Smith (Trading statement)

Economics: Construction PMI (UK), services PMI (US), composite PMI (US), factory orders (Ger)