I will call Luke Taylor to move the motion, and then I will call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and from the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will be no opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.
That this House has considered Government support for consumer energy bills.
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairship for the first time, Ms Jardine. This morning, hon. Members may have caught the same package on the breakfast news as I did. It followed Ukrainians on the outskirts of Kyiv who had been without heating for more than two weeks. They have suffered in conditions unthinkable to those of us in modern Britain, with temperatures in some places dropping to minus 20° overnight. The pictures —of children with frozen faces wearing four or five coats, and grandmothers slipping on sheets of ice that had formed on the floors of their apartments—were heartbreaking.
I hope that hon. Members will indulge my making that aside at the start of my remarks; as I watched those scenes, I could not help but feel alarmed at the sense that Russia’s targeting of Ukrainian energy infrastructure mirrors the shockwaves it has wilfully sent across Europe’s traditional energy mix since it first crossed the Ukrainian border nearly four years ago. Those shockwaves were amplified in the UK when they collided with the unstable economic conditions wrought by Liz Truss’s mini-Budget, whose impacts are still rumbling on today.
We are fortunate in this country not to suffer temperatures consistently way below 0°, and especially lucky not to have to contend with that while bombs rain down on our heads. But the reality of the dangers of cold is present everywhere, and our cost of energy crisis is forcing people to live without heating mere miles from where we stand today, in the world’s sixth largest economy.
It is always innocent, ordinary people—from Kyiv to Kilburn and everywhere in between—who suffer because of huge energy price shocks: ordinary people such as the pensioners in my constituency of Sutton and Cheam, who are living in homes that are sealed shut against the winter, their windows “boarded up” with blankets and towels as they try desperately to keep inside what little heat they can afford.
In the Chamber last week, I mentioned an incident in which I knocked on the door of a resident who answered in a coat and scarf—not because she was going out, but because she did not have the heating on inside; it was around 3° or 4° outside. It happened again yesterday, when I was out canvassing in Worcester Park. I have heard from households that now avoid using their ovens, not out of choice but out of fear of what switching them on will do to their finances. Local hospitals prepare for influxes after cold snaps, because the cold weather thickens blood and causes clots and heart attacks in older people. Anyone who has experienced true cold—awful, core-shaking cold—can only dare to imagine what it feels like for children and older people, whose temperature regulation is developing or fading.
Over 6,000 households in my constituency are living in fuel poverty. The warm homes plan will deliver targeted support for those living in fuel-poor households and provide them with the means to upgrade their homes with insulation, solar panels and heat pumps. Does the hon. Member agree that we should prioritise measures that improve energy efficiency and sustainability to cut fuel bills for years to come?
Absolutely, and I will come on to the package that the Government outlined last week. It was very welcome, but we need to go further on immediate measures.
More than 12 million households are struggling with high energy bills today. It is not just the cold, but what creeps in with it: the damp and mould in children’s lungs and the reliance, for some families, on heating that produces dangerous carbon monoxide, which presents a threat to life and limb. Let us be clear: in parts of Britain where fuel poverty is all too common, we are at risk of letting one generation slip away slowly, sitting lonely in their homes, shivering, while we raise another forever stunted by a cold childhood.
I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this matter forward; it affects everybody in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. About 39% to 40% of households in Northern Ireland are classed as being in fuel poverty, meaning that they spend more than 10% of their income on energy just to keep their homes warm. Those stats are significantly above historic measures, and many working families do not qualify for Government assistance. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Government must do more. Does he agree that very little action has been taken to ease pressure on working families, and that more must be done to adjust thresholds so that those families are eligible for support and assistance?
The hon. Member highlights the gap between families who are eligible for support and those who just cannot quite make ends meet. Clearly, there is a challenge in making any measure completely comprehensive and ensuring that those in need get the support they require.
When Beveridge wrote of his five great evils all those decades ago, he had in mind specifically the kind of poverty that we are talking about here—not just in material terms, but in access to living conditions that make a higher quality of life possible. In the decades since, we have clung to the findings of his report while slowly letting the meaning of those words decay, assuming that things such as freezing to death in one’s own home were evils conquered by the “white heat” of revolution. We were wrong, and squalor, by means of poor housing, insulation and lack of warmth, is back in Britain. It is here, not just in the homes of the poorest and most vulnerable, but all too often in the suburban houses of middle-income families and in urban flats where young people raise kids.
That is to say nothing of parts of rural Britain, where very old, pre-modern insulation in housing is still the norm. For too many families and pensioners I meet, across neighbourhoods, ages and even incomes, this is the single most pressing issue in their lives. We do not need a new Beveridge report to tell us that—not that we are wanting for heartbreaking statistics. We can see it with our own eyes and hear it with our own ears, and we feel it in our bones when we knock on doors in our constituencies, time and again, day in, day out.
When an issue gets to the heart of people’s quality of life in such a huge way, the state has a duty to cut through the roadblocks, take the lead and do something about it quickly. This Government, however, have taken too long to do so. The announcement last week of the warm homes plan is welcome; we Liberal Democrats have been pushing for it for years. Many organisations working in this space, such as the MCS Foundation, are relieved to see it finally outlined.
As somebody who suffers enormously from the cold—as anyone can see from my hands, which are already white—I really appreciate my hon. Friend for bringing this point forward. The warm homes plan is incredibly welcome, but I am worried about the order in which it suggests interventions. The idea that we should be putting solar panels and heat pumps before insulation and air tightness worries me, having spent 25 years in the building industry.
I am also very concerned about the focus on specific technologies rather than on aims. The real solution must be to cut the cost of heating our homes. There are innovative solutions, such as the Luthmore electric boiler, developed by an innovative firm in my own constituency; a gas boiler can be taken out and the Luthmore boiler plugged straight in. However, we risk pandering to those who can afford to put these measures in, while the most vulnerable are left exactly where they are, in damp homes. I assume my hon. Friend agrees with me.
I wholeheartedly agree. As an engineer by background, I think we need to focus on the outcome and the goal, rather than prejudicing the tool. While air-source heat pumps are suitable in many cases, they rely on air tightness and insulation, which may well be a barrier to quick implementation.
The Liberal Democrats have been calling for a 10-year emergency home upgrade programme, starting with free insulation and heat pumps for those on low incomes.
A constituent of mine was having energy retrofit work carried out by Consumer Energy Solutions under the energy company obligation 4 scheme, which seeks to lower heating costs. That firm has recently gone into administration, and the work will now not be finished. The ECO4 scheme has been extended, but the Government have not clearly committed to introducing better protections for customers. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government urgently need to ensure greater consumer protections against installers’ incompetence and incompletions?
I agree 100%. Whenever we have novel technologies, there is a rush to fill the space; unfortunately, cowboys may well get there first. The Government have a huge role not only in encouraging quality installation but in protecting against that vacuum being filled by disreputable traders.
On the subject of the home upgrade programme, as with most Liberal Democrat policies we urge the Government to steal it. It would complement and, frankly, complete their own strategy. I invite the Minister to take this opportunity to outline specifically how the delivery of that strategy will work. As we Liberal Democrats have said, without a clear replacement for the ECO programme or future homes standard, we face losing skilled installers and risk long delays for the kind of ambitious programme of insulation that we need. That is not a theoretical loss: homes with lower efficiency standards are actively dangerous to people’s health. We will hold the Government accountable for their legally binding targets, but I encourage them to remember that full disclosure of the practicalities of implementing the strategy would help all of us work harder to tackle fuel poverty.
In fact, the Government should be working more closely with new projects such as the Citigen network, which I recently visited in London, or with local councils such as my own in Sutton, to see how new alternative heat sources are already making a difference to people’s lives. We can and must be more ambitious. We must surely now recognise that the scale of the crisis is so severe that tinkering with infrastructure investment, while useful for the future, does not solve the problem for families shivering and cutting back every single day.
To genuinely rescue people from the cold, we must tackle the real cost of energy now. That is why we need a social tariff to provide targeted energy discounts for vulnerable households, including those on low incomes and in receipt of personal independence payment. That is why the Liberal Democrats have been calling for the renewables obligation levy to be removed from people’s energy bills and instead funded by a proper windfall tax until April 2027—after which the Government should develop a new way of funding RO contracts, implementing Liberal Democrat proposals to move them on to a contracts-for-difference model. That would decouple energy prices from the wholesale gas prices and ensure that ordinary people across the country can benefit from cheap renewable energy.
In addition to the absence of Reform MPs, the absence of Conservative MPs is also striking. It was during the Truss-Kwarteng mini-Budget that borrowing was pushed up by £60 billion because of the energy price guarantee that was a consequence of Government dependence on Russian gas. Does my hon. Friend agree that what we need in this country is energy independence, so that we have energy security and can be the custodians of our own destiny?
I could not agree more: energy security is national security. It sounds like a trite cliché, but it is so absolutely true when we look at the dangers around the world today.
The Minister has heard my arguments and the arguments made by other colleagues who intervened. The Minister will have seen, like the rest of us, the findings of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, published earlier today: that the number of people living in the most extreme form of poverty has reached its highest level since records began. In addition to my other asks this afternoon, I ask the Minister to simply look us in the eye and tell us why, when people are freezing, the Government are not moving faster?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) for securing this very important debate.
I have seen at first hand how urgent the cost of living pressures are for many of my residents. Just last week, I hosted a cost-of-living coffee morning in my community, bringing together energy providers, water companies, banks and local support groups. It was a practical example of how joined-up, accessible support can make a real difference to residents in Portsmouth, particularly when people are helped to understand what they are entitled to and how they can access alternatives.
I want to say a huge thanks to all who attended, be they residents or stakeholders, including: Advice Portsmouth, Centrica, British Gas, HIVE Portsmouth, IncomeMax, Octopus Energy, Nationwide, Switched on Portsmouth, Portsmouth Water, the Energy Ombudsman, E.ON Next, Utilita Energy, Southern Water and NatWest. The drop-in highlighted so many issues, which is why I welcome the Government’s excellent warm homes plan—a plan that will improve energy efficiency, reduce energy bills, cut carbon emissions and tackle fuel poverty through a mix of grants, loans, local delivery and updating of standards.
The warm homes plan is vital because consumers have been let down by previous Governments, and by rogue tradies, so many times. We must think about trust. That is why I have been meeting with Checkatrade, the Department for Business and Trade and the sector, to ensure that our tradies’ reputations are not let down by cowboy builders and shoddy outfits when we bring about the reality of our warm homes plan. Although I welcome the warm homes plan, warmly, I ask the Minister to outline how it will build trust and complement local, community-led initiatives to ensure that energy bill support and home efficiency measures meet the people of Portsmouth’s needs.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine, I think for the first time. We could probably have done with a longer debate given how many people intervened at the start, but I thank the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) for securing this debate and for giving us the opportunity to debate an important issue, which I know lots of Members across the House have an interest in.
I associate myself with the hon. Member’s remarks about the situation in Ukraine. Last year, when I attended the G7 Energy and Environment Ministers meeting, I met the then Ukrainian Energy Minister. I was struck by the sheer scale of what she was facing every day, such as sending energy workers into the field to repair broken transmission lines and substations—not just facing the risks that any worker faces in situations with high voltage cables, but also facing the risk of Russian drone attacks and bombs. I could not be clearer in condemning the actions of the Russian regime and what they are doing in targeting infrastructure at this time.
As I draw this debate to a close, I want to reaffirm that tackling the affordability crisis is this Government’s No. 1 priority. The main reason that bills are so high, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam alluded to, is the wholesale cost of gas and our exposure to price shocks caused by our dependence on fossil fuel markets. We are working to bring down, for good, the cost of energy by taking back control of our energy system through our clean energy superpower mission. Thanks to our decisions, last year was a record year for wind and solar power, and we have embarked on the biggest nuclear building programme for half a century. Already in 2026, the Government’s seventh contracts for difference auction secured an incredible 8.4 GW of new offshore wind capacity across Britain—enough to deliver energy for more than 12 million homes. That is what it means to deliver on lower bills, good jobs and energy security. I have to look at the Opposition Benches, which are empty this afternoon, and think about the work that those Members could have been doing in government over the past 14 years to take us to a position where we would have been less reliant on fossil fuels and not facing such fuel shocks. I suppose it is no surprise that they did not turn up to defend their record.
I was aware that the Minister had seen the boiler I mentioned. I welcome the warm homes plan immensely, but I have a slight worry about it. There is the old saying that doing the same thing again and expecting a different outcome is a sign of madness. My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) highlighted that the previous scheme failed to do the right things at the right time, due to a lack of scrutiny and accountability. I have not seen anything in the warm homes plan that talks of an overview to ensure that a heat pump is installed only when it needs to be, since airtightness and insulation would be more appropriate first.
To address those points: the warm homes agency, which is part of the plan, is there to provide advice and guidance to consumers from the start to the end of the retrofit journey. That is about increasing the level of advice and guidance available. I understand that retrofitting a home is challenging and that people need advice and guidance to do it effectively, as the hon. Lady noted.
As for oversight, there has been a problem in the past, as we saw with the number of issues around the ECO4 programme. The warm homes plan states clearly that we will consult on the protection available to consumers through the course of this year. As the Minister responsible, I never want to see an issue like ECO4 again. We need to make it as easy as possible. We should ensure that problems do not occur in the first instance, but when they do there must be proper adequate redress, so that there is confidence in the system. We cannot expect people to make these changes without confidence in the system.
The warm homes plan will roll out upgrades to up to 5 million homes by 2030, saving households hundreds of pounds on energy bills and helping lift up to 1 million families out of fuel poverty by 2030. We are providing £5 billion of targeted support for low-income households, which will receive free upgrades, including heat pumps, solar panels and batteries. That includes additional funding for the very successful warm homes local grant, and the warm homes social housing fund for local authorities and social landlords to upgrade homes for those on low incomes and in social housing. Those upgrades can provide a significant saving for a typical household of £550 a year on their bills. Alongside that, we have allocated £5 billion to a new warm homes fund, almost £2 billion of which will go to the provision of low or zero-interest loans. That will make it easier for more people to meet the up-front costs of upgrading their homes in order to benefit from lower bills.
The End Fuel Poverty Coalition estimated that 4,950 excess winter deaths in the UK were caused by living in cold homes during that first chaotic winter of 2022-23.
I am sorry not to see any Reform MPs here, although it is not a surprise; it was written down here in my notes. They deserve to be told once again that net zero does not mean higher energy costs. How we fund our energy transition is a political choice. They are choosing to remain wedded to the very system that has left us so vulnerable and Britons literally freezing to death in their own homes, rather than making sure that the fat cats pay their fair share towards keeping people in this country alive.
Notwithstanding the concerns voiced by hon. Members this afternoon, which I share, energy bills are starting to come down. In real terms, Ofgem’s price cap was lower in 2025 than in 2024, but we know we need to go further. The Government’s intervention at last year’s Budget will help people deal with cost of living pressures, by taking an average £150 of costs off energy bills from April 2026. By closing the ECO scheme and providing Exchequer funding to reduce the cost of the renewables obligation for domestic energy suppliers, this Government are turning a corner by putting more money in people’s pockets in 2026.
At this point, I want to address the point made by the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), who raised the issue of an ECO project affecting one of his constituents. I ask him to send me the details of that case in writing, so that we can investigate it fully. In addition to the £150 off energy costs, we have expanded the warm home discount scheme this year, so that more households will benefit from its support. That means that up to 6 million households will receive a £150 rebate on their energy bills this winter. In Sutton and Cheam, over 2,800 households received the warm home discount last winter; we expect that to increase significantly this year. Under the expansion across London, for example, 950,000 households will benefit from the warm home discount this winter. That is money going on to people’s energy bills and bank accounts, now. I recognise how important that support is to households across Britain over the winter months. That is why we have proposed continuing the warm home discount scheme for a further five years, up to winter 2030-31.
A number of hon. Members raised the warm homes plan, and I will address some of those issues in a moment. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said we needed an ambitious plan; that is precisely what the warm homes plan that we announced last week is. Reducing bills is not just about discounts, whether that is £150 off costs or the warm home discount; it is also about transforming an ageing building stock into comfortable, low-carbon homes that are cheaper to heat and fit for the future.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Rusholme (Afzal Khan) highlighted, the warm homes plan is a vital step in the Government’s mission to address the long-term issue of energy affordability in this country. It is the biggest ever public investment in home upgrades and will help millions of households benefit from solar panels, batteries, heat pumps and insulation.
The hon. Member for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson) talked about the priority afforded to different measures. I reassure her that we are not suggesting that insulation is not important. I am sure she has read the warm homes plan and will have seen the pages that deal specifically with insulation. Insulation plays an especially important part in the local government schemes we are running. With the offer of consumer loans and the work we are doing with finance organisations, there will be an opportunity to finance the retrofit of homes.
The hon. Lady highlighted how technology is changing. She talked about the electric boiler, which I have seen myself. We have been looking at lots of different technologies that could deliver and have already made changes, for example, to the boiler upgrade scheme, which is now offering heat batteries and air-to-air heat pumps as well as traditional heat pumps. We are always on the lookout for new technologies.
About 30% of private rented sector tenants live in fuel poverty. We are introducing new minimum energy efficiency standards for the private rented sector and the social rented sector, which will save renters hundreds of pounds a year and ensure that they have decent, warm homes. I am confident that the landmark plan that we have announced will make people across Britain better off, secure our energy independence and do right by future generations by tackling the climate crisis.
One of the effects of the affordability crisis has been to increase consumer debt, which remains at a record level. Reducing debt not only helps those in debt but cuts the cost of managing debt for all consumers. I recognise the need to tackle that problem, and I have been working closely with Ofgem to do that. In November, Ofgem published an updated debt strategy that set out its near-term actions and priorities in supporting suppliers to reduce debt in the sector. It includes proposals for a debt relief scheme to tackle the debt that some consumers built up during the energy crisis; that could reduce aggregate debt.
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) for arranging the coffee morning and the energy support event. I believe that many Members are doing similar things; they have received a lot of support from energy suppliers and other organisations. She said that she has had conversations with Checkatrade and with people in the building trade. I said a moment ago that we are ensuring high levels of consumer protection to protect not just consumers but those in the building trade. Whenever I meet them, they ask for reliable regulation and standards that they can adhere to. The vast majority of builders, who are maintaining a high standard, do not want their reputation trashed by people who are not meeting those high standards.
The energy system is changing. We have more clean power and innovative tariffs, such as time of use tariffs, and the use of technologies such as heat pumps and electric vehicles has grown. That means that we need solutions fit for 2030 and beyond. Ofgem is currently conducting a cost allocation and recovery review to look at how costs on energy bills can be recovered in the future, and it is considering factors such as efficiency, fairness, meeting our net zero commitments, ensuring growth, and how we pay for our energy system. I am keen that that ensures that progressivity is at the heart of the way people pay for their energy.
The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam spoke about a social tariff, which I know a lot of hon. Members would welcome, but I am always thoughtful about how we make sure that is properly targeted. For that, we need reliable data. We have just launched a kick-starter project with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which is about accurately finding reliable household income data and properly targeting energy interventions—I would be happy to discuss that in more detail with the hon. Gentleman. It is vital to ensuring that energy costs and bills reflect the changing market.
We are bringing energy bills down for everyone with the actions that we will be taking in April, and we will continue to search for other ways to do so. We are lowering bills through the delivery of the Budget’s bill reduction measures. We have expanded the warm home discount, and are delivering the record-breaking warm homes plan. We are working with Ofgem to future-proof how costs are managed, and are taking action to fund a cleaner, more secure energy system. We will achieve bill savings while taking back control with home-grown clean power. That is the route to cheaper energy in the long run. Every wind turbine that we turn on and every piece of new technology that we adopt helps us reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, including gas, and ensures that we get costs down in the long run. That is the only way to protect the British people and bring down bills for good. That is what the Government’s clean energy mission is all about.