While Labour brings down your bills, Reform courts the fracking industry, writes Ed Miliband

Last autumn at the budget, we asked those with the broadest shoulders to pay their fair share so we could take £150 of costs off energy bills.

We took this action because our Government’s number one priority is to tackle Britain’s affordability crisis. We know that families have been struggling with their bills, and we are determined to act.

Today, it has been confirmed that, thanks to our actions, the energy price cap will fall by 6.6 per cent or £117 from this April, bringing down bills for families across the country. This comes on top of our decision to expand the £150 Warm Home Discount to around 6 million low-income families this winter.

Bills are now headed in the right direction, but we have much more to do. This Government made a commitment to get energy bills down by up to £300 by 2030, and we stand by it. Average bills were lower in real terms in 2025 than across 2024, and are now on course to be even lower in 2026. We have a lot further to go, but I am confident we can get there.

That is why we are doubling down on our mission for clean power. Energy bills remain higher than before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with wholesale gas costs for consumers still 40 per cent higher than historic levels.

That is what drives the Government’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower, the only way to bring down bills for good – with a record number of renewable projects secured since July 2024, and record investment in new nuclear in a generation to get Britain off the fossil fuel rollercoaster.

We’ve also begun to deliver the biggest home upgrade scheme in British history, with £15 billion of investment set to roll out upgrades for up to 5 million homes and lift up to a million households out of fuel poverty by 2030. This plan targets help at low-income families, alongside a universal offer, to ensure that working families can feel the benefits of products that can cut their bills.

The political choice between us and our opponents could not be clearer. Reform UK opposed the fair measures in our budget that we used to deliver this cut in bills. They have no solution to the cost of living crisis.

Only yesterday we saw Reform set out their energy policy and it is more of the same disasters that caused bills to rocket in the first place; waging war on cheap, homegrown clean power, destroying jobs for British workers, and imposing fracking on our countryside. Reform is simply the political wing of the fracking industry. This is dangerous stuff- an Energy Surrender Plan that every billpayer would be on the hook for.

I’m proud of the action we’re taking. Every home we upgrade, every wind turbine we put up, every solar panel we install helps protect families from future energy shocks. We won’t stop acting on the affordability crisis, now and for the long term, to bring down bills for good.

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Ed Miliband MP is Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.

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