Brace yourself for the next bill. From 1 July 2026, the energy price cap rises by 13.5%, pushing the typical household's annual bill to around £1,862. That is hundreds of pounds more than households were paying only a few months ago, and it lands at the worst possible time, with families already squeezed by frozen tax thresholds and rising prices everywhere else.
Part of Your Bill Is Pure Ideology
Here is what the government would rather you didn't dwell on. A growing share of your energy bill has nothing to do with the gas or electricity you actually use. The cost of grid upgrades to wire up the net zero transition added around £65 to bills in April 2026 alone, with more to come over the next five years. Network costs and policy costs are climbing to fund the rush to rewire the entire country on a political timetable.
We are told this is an investment in cheaper bills tomorrow. But tomorrow keeps moving, and the bills keep rising today. You are paying a premium now for a promise that never quite arrives. Ask yourself: when did your bill ever go down because of net zero?
A Self-Inflicted Wound
Britain sits on substantial energy resources and has world-class engineers, yet we have some of the highest industrial electricity prices in the developed world. That is not bad luck. It is the predictable result of a policy that rules out reliable, affordable home-grown energy on principle and bets everything on intermittent sources that need expensive backup and an entirely rebuilt grid.
The people who pay for that decision are not the politicians who made it. They are pensioners deciding whether to heat the living room, and small businesses watching their margins vanish into the standing charge.
Reform Councils Are Already Saying No
This is why Reform-led councils up and down the country are pushing back on net zero spending at local level. Nigel Farage has been clear: end the net zero obsession, and cut the costs it loads onto ordinary people. It is one of the few messages in British politics right now that is both popular and honest about the trade-offs.
What Reform UK Would Do
Reform UK would scrap the net zero targets that drive these costs, strip the green levies off household bills, and back reliable domestic energy, including our own gas, to bring prices down. Cheap, secure energy is the foundation of a competitive economy and a warm home. Everything else is a luxury we are forcing struggling families to pay for.
Households did not vote to be the funding mechanism for a Westminster experiment. Affordable energy should come before political symbolism, every single time.