Splitting the bill: How can Government help families with high energy bills?

This briefing note looks into the drivers of Britain’s stubbornly high household energy bills, and how reform of the costs added onto bills offers a route for helping families with the cost of living this winter. It outlines three principles for change: that efforts should work for the most vulnerable households, provide a tailwind for the net zero transition, and be realistic within the UK’s tight fiscal situation. It finds that the costs of government policies have pushed up electricity bills over the past decade, and argues that shifting some of these costs – those associated with welfare schemes that have been outsourced to energy bills, those due to closed renewable energy programmes, and those associated with unnecessary carbon taxes – from billpayers to taxpayers would allow ministers to deliver a quick win in cutting household costs this winter.