From 1 July, the energy price cap rises by 13%. A typical household paying by direct debit will see their annual bill climb to £1,862, an increase of around £221. Prepayment customers face £1,812; those who pay on receipt of a bill will be hit with £2,005. Once again, the families who can least afford it are being squeezed the hardest.
But look beneath the headline number and you find the real story. Electricity bills are rising by around 5%. Gas bills are rising by a brutal 24%. The cause, according to Ofgem, is higher wholesale gas prices driven by the conflict in the Middle East. And that single fact demolishes the central promise of the net zero project.
We Were Promised Cheap, Secure Energy. We Got Neither.
For years, Ed Miliband and the green lobby told us that rushing to net zero would make Britain energy independent and slash bills. The opposite has happened. A war thousands of miles away can still send British gas prices soaring by a quarter, because we remain hooked on imported gas while we shut down our own production in the North Sea.
You cannot decarbonise your way out of a gas crisis by banning the gas you have under your own feet. Every time a flashpoint erupts overseas, British households pay the price. That is not energy security. That is energy surrender.
The Hidden Costs Nobody Voted For
It is not just wholesale prices. Layered on top of every bill are the costs of net zero infrastructure: grid upgrades, renewable subsidies, standing charges and levies that the political class would rather you did not notice. These costs do not disappear when wholesale prices fall. They are baked in permanently, a stealth tax on warmth.
Meanwhile, pensioners are rationing heating and small businesses are folding because their energy bills have become unmanageable. The government calls this progress. Out in the real world, it looks like managed decline.
What Reform UK Would Do
Reform UK would scrap the net zero targets that are driving up bills and restore Britain's energy independence. That means backing domestic gas production in the North Sea, lifting the effective ban on new licences, and treating our own natural resources as an asset rather than an embarrassment.
We would strip the green levies out of household bills and stop using ordinary families as a piggy bank for ideological projects. Energy policy should serve the British people, not a target on a politician's spreadsheet. Until Westminster grasps that, every overseas crisis will keep landing on your kitchen table in the form of a higher bill.