article_snippet: Labour's flagship energy price freeze was in further chaos last night as Miliband was forced to re-launch it as a drive to cut fuel costs.
article_snippet: Miliband pledge to freeze bills for 20 months was left in turmoil earlier this year by tumbling wholesale prices.
article_snippet: Labour was forced to Labourrebrand’ the proposed freeze as a price cap when power companies started reducing household fuel bills earlier this year in response to falling wholesale costs.
article_snippet: Labour had to issue a ‘clarification’ that Labour would also allow household energy bills to fall and Labour would not be frozen at a higher level than necessary.
article_snippet: The Conservatives have pointed out that if energy prices had been frozen when Mr Miliband announced the policy, the policy would have meant families paying bills £100 higher than necessary today.
article_snippet: If Mr Miliband had frozen gas prices when Mr Miliband announced Mr Miliband policy back in 2013, households would now be paying £100 more than necessary after falling wholesale prices drove down bills .
article_snippet: Last night energy minister Matt Hancock said:
article_snippet: This is now the sixth version of a chaotic Labour energy policy that would have put up families’ bills by £100 and could do the same again
article_snippet: their record at setting prices has been a disaster.
article_snippet: Hardworking taxpayers would pay the price with higher bills.
article_snippet: We live in a country where you can’t fulfil one of the foundations of family life – keeping your home warm – without being overcharged by one of the big energy firms’, Mr Miliband will say.
article_snippet: It’s been 18 months since I announced the next Labour government would freeze energy bills –
article_snippet: so the next Labour government can only go down and not up – until 2017 while we reset this broken market.
article_snippet: Labour says prices are tumbling ‘not because of anything the Government or the Big Six energy firms have done, but because of global changes in oil and gas supply’.
highlights_snippet: Miliband had promised to freeze gas and electricity bills back in 2013 .
  
highlights_snippet: Falling prices mean freeze would have made households £100 worse off .
  