THE UK Government is to publish draft legislation to enforce a cap on some energy prices on Thursday, it has been announced.

Last week in her keynote speech to Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Theresa May announced that she intended to use the law to protect vulnerable consumers from energy price hikes.

The draft legislation, to be unveiled by Business Secretary Greg Clark on October 12, is expected to provide energy regulator Ofgem with powers to impose a cap on standard variable tariffs over the whole market.

Ofgem is already preparing its own proposals for a cap and Downing Street has made clear the legislation could be ditched if the regulator's plan is able to achieve the same objective more quickly.

Announcing the date of the publication of draft legislation, the Prime Minister's spokesman told a regular Westminster media briefing: "The Prime Minister said at conference that we recognise the difficulties that people are facing and that is why we are moving quickly after the Prime Minister's conference announcement."