Households just got a fortnight's warning of the next hit to their finances. From 1 July 2026, Ofgem's price cap rises by 13.5 per cent, taking the typical dual-fuel direct debit bill from £1,641 to £1,862 a year. That is an extra £221 annually, around £18 a month, landing in the middle of summer. And ministers want you to believe there was nothing they could do about it.
Blaming the Market They Built
The official explanation is higher wholesale gas costs and volatility in global energy markets. That much is true. But it dodges the obvious question: why is Britain, an island sitting on substantial North Sea oil and gas reserves, so completely exposed to the price of imported gas? The answer is policy. Successive governments, and Labour most enthusiastically of all, have chosen to wind down domestic production and bet the household budget on a green transition that has not yet delivered cheaper power.
When gas still sets the price of electricity, and you have deliberately reduced your own gas supply, every spike in the world market goes straight onto British bills. That is not bad luck. That is the predictable result of an energy policy designed in Westminster.
Net Zero Has a Price, and Families Are Paying It
We are told the green levies and the rush to net zero will eventually pay for themselves. Tell that to the pensioner rationing the heating, or the family watching the standing charge climb regardless of how little they use. The costs of this agenda are loaded onto ordinary bill-payers today, while the promised savings remain forever just over the horizon. Meanwhile other countries with cheaper energy attract the investment and the jobs that should be ours.
Energy Security Is National Security
The recent volatility, driven in part by conflict in the Middle East, is a reminder that energy is not an abstract environmental issue. It is a question of national resilience. A country that cannot guarantee affordable power to its own people is a country that has surrendered control of its own destiny to events abroad. Britain should never be in that position.
What Reform UK Would Do
Reform UK would scrap the net zero targets that drive these costs and put affordability and security first. We would back the North Sea, fast-track new gas and nuclear capacity, and exploit our own shale reserves rather than importing energy at a premium. We would strip the green levies off household bills and reform the broken pricing system that lets gas dictate the cost of all our electricity. Cheap, reliable, home-grown energy is not a fantasy. It is a choice this government refuses to make.