Most people with gas and electric powered heating will still see their energy prices fall for the next three months, following a shake-up of government charges, so any impact of the war will be delayed until the autumn – but bills could rise at that point.
“Obviously we are preparing for every eventuality,” said Miliband, acknowledging that people were struggling before the Gulf crisis and “cost of living is people’s number one priority”.
“If it’s necessary to intervene we will,” he said, adding that the scale of any intervention was dependent on what the eventual impact of the conflict was by July.
Miliband also dismissed calls from the Conservatives for his government to approve new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, highlighting that the price of gas is set by international markets regardless of whether gas comes from the North Sea or the Middle East.
“We are a price taker not a price maker,” he said. “There is one lesson from this crisis, and only one in my view for the long term on energy policy, and that is that we need home-grown, clean power that we control.”
Speaking on the same programme, shadow energy security secretary Claire Coutinho called on the government to “implement my cheap power plan” to reduce bills immediately.
The Conservative MP said the “first port of call should be to reduce costs” to people’s energy bills, “before we go to the taxpayer again”, and said renewables policies championed by successive Tory prime ministers should now be abandoned.
She said the Conservative Party “reserves the right” to call for direct government intervention, such as the subsidised system on energy bills in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine implemented by Liz Truss.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey told Kuenssberg there was a “huge problem with the hike in oil prices, in petrol prices, in energy bills, in mortgage costs, thanks to this illegal and damaging war”.
Calling for the US and Israel, as well as Iran, to “stop the bombing”, he said the “best way” to get the Strait of Hormuz opened is to “deescalate this war” – which would then provide the “most certain way to help families struggling here”.