With a fraught fiscal situation, the government should use every policy lever it has available to ensure households have energy and financial security, not just this winter but every year. Making cuts now, in particular to net zero capital spend, will be a false economy that will cost the government and households more down the line. In particular the government will need to look at how to protect households from continued high energy bills, beyond the emergency support provided this year.

This briefing looks at the policies the government should implement to ensure the following:

1. Making sure people have homes they can afford to heat by reducing energy waste across the UK. Policies need to remove three barriers: lack of public knowledge, shortages in supply chains, and access to finance
2. Speeding up the transition to cheap, low carbon energy to lower bills faster by focusing on people, planning and prices
3. Increase the level of the windfall tax to support households and green investment