The Ofgem announcement on 1 April was sold to the country as good news. The energy price cap fell by 6.6% — down to £1,641 for a typical dual-fuel direct debit household. Labour ministers took a victory lap. The papers ran the headline. And then, two weeks later, the bills landed and the people opening them noticed something strange: their bills had barely moved. Why? Because while the unit rate fell, the standing charge — the fixed daily fee you pay before you switch a single light on — has stayed at over 54p a day for electricity alone.

The standing charge is where the politics is hidden

The standing charge is one of the most consequential numbers in British public life that almost no one talks about. It is the fixed cost loaded onto every household's bill, every single day, whether you used any energy or not. For a low-income household that has cut its consumption to the bone, the standing charge can be the majority of the bill. A pensioner in a cold flat trying to save by sitting in the dark still owes more than £200 a year just for the privilege of being connected.

And this is where the political class has hidden the cost of net zero. Levies for renewable subsidies, for grid investment to support intermittent generation, for "social and environmental" obligations — they all get bundled into the standing charge. Every household in Britain, whatever its income, pays this every day. It is the most regressive tax in the country, and successive governments have refused to take responsibility for it.

The Q3 cap will probably go back up

Labour was lucky. Wholesale gas prices fell in early 2026 and gave them a headline win they did not earn. But Ofgem's next price cap review for Q3 — covering July to September — is due to be published by 27 May, and the early indicators are not encouraging. Wholesale costs have crept back up. Network costs are rising. Standing charges remain locked in. The "good news" of April will look distinctly less impressive by July.

And remember: the headline cap is for a "typical household". Most households are not typical. If you use more than the model assumes, you pay more. If you have a heat pump that Labour wants you to install, your electricity bill is enormous. If you have an electric car your government wants you to buy, ditto.

Net zero is the price you pay before you pay anything

British energy policy is currently structured around a single objective: hit a 2050 net zero target, regardless of the cost to ordinary people, regardless of the impact on British industry, regardless of whether the rest of the world is doing the same thing. They are not, by the way. China is opening coal plants. India is opening coal plants. America is drilling. Britain is paying.

And the way the bill is presented to ordinary households deliberately obscures what is going on. The unit rate fluctuates with wholesale gas and gets all the political attention. The standing charge — where the policy levies live — quietly creeps up year after year, locked in regardless of what you do as a consumer. You cannot conserve your way out of it. You cannot economise. You just pay.

What Reform UK Would Do

Reform UK would scrap the 2050 net zero deadline, end the levies that load British bills with the cost of policy choices, and rebuild a domestic energy supply that prioritises affordability and security over diplomatic gestures. We would lift the moratorium on North Sea licensing, restore proper exploration, and unleash the cheap, reliable energy this country sits on. We would also force standing charges down by stripping out the policy levies that have no business being there.

It is not anti-environment to want a working country. It is not extreme to want a pensioner not to die of cold because the standing charge ate her winter fuel payment. A government that cared about ordinary people would not let the regressive part of the bill grow while it boasted about cutting the headline number. Labour is doing exactly that. Reform UK will end it.