OREANDA-NEWS  The UK government plans to roll out COVID-style bailouts for small­-sized companies amid energy executives’ warnings of possible civil unrest due to soaring energy bills, according to The Telegraph.Ministers are reportedly considering a grant scheme for small businesses to present to the next UK prime minister after a winner in a leadership race between Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and ex-Chancellor Rishi Sunak is expected to be announced early next month.The issue is also on the table of Shevaun Haviland, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), who told the Telegraph that small businesses in the UK face “a tsunami of costs.”He underscored that without serious aid, “businesses will have to reduce output, stop hiring and some will have to cease trading.”According to the BCC, about 4.5 million small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will need around ?5,000 each to afford their power bills over the winter, which amounts to ?23 billion of government support.They added that the government has cut taxes for “hundreds of thousands of businesses by increasing the Employment Allowance and slashing fuel duty. The spokesperson said that the No 10 “also introduced a 50pc business rates relief for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses and put the brakes on bill increases by freezing the business rates multiplier, worth ?4.6bn over the next five years.”The remarks came after Keith Anderson, chief executive of Scottish Power, one of the UK's biggest energy companies, told STV, a Scottish TV station, that the UK government should protect millions of households by freezing their energy bills for at least two years.Scottish Power has repeatedly urged the UK government to cap energy bills at about ?2,000 ($2,356). Britain’s average annual bill currently stands at ?1,971 ($2,318), but it is forecast to hit ?3,500 ($4,117) when the upper price cap is fixed on Friday for the last three months of this year.CNN reported in this regard that freezing gas and electricity prices in the next two winters could cost the UK government over ?100 billion ($118 billion), more than Downing Street allocated for millions of people's salaries during the coronavirus pandemic.Last week, a study conducted by the University of York suggested that at least 45 million Brits may be in the grip of fuel poverty by January 2022 due to the looming energy price cap increase, a scenario that may unfold against the growing UK inflation that has already a 40-year high at 10.1%. The increase was triggered by record prices for fuel, as well as the soaring cost of food, clothing, and furniture that came against the background of the anti-Russian sanctions slapped by the US and its allies on Moscow over its ongoing special military operation in Ukraine.