Since her first hours in the job, the Prime Minister has prioritized a series of energy policy measures to tackle the cost of living crisis. It will unveil a cap on energy price rises – although without extending the windfall tax on producers – freezing the average household’s energy bill at £2,500 a year. It has also signaled a push to extract more gas and oil from the North Sea, speed up new licensing of North Sea oil and gas fields and lift the moratorium on fracking in order to increase natural gas production. On Wednesday, former Tory environment secretary Lord Debben and Sir John Armitt, who chairs the Climate Change Commission and the National Infrastructure Commission respectively, wrote to Truss warning that increasing gas production would not solve the problem. They wrote: “The UK cannot deal with this crisis by increasing gas production alone. Greater domestic production of fossil fuels can improve energy security, particularly this winter. “But our natural gas reserves – offshore or shale – are too small to have a meaningful impact on the prices UK consumers face.” The letter marks the first time the chairmen of the independent advisory bodies have jointly addressed a prime minister. They advised Truss, along with the incoming chancellor and business secretary, to focus on reducing energy demand from consumers and businesses. “Energy security and reducing the UK’s exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices requires strong policies that reduce energy waste across the economy and boost domestic production of cheap and secure low-carbon energy,” they wrote in the letter, which the Guardian saw. This would require policies such as home insulation, requiring public bodies to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings, creating an energy advice service for consumers and increasing renewable energy production, particularly onshore wind and solar energy. “Renewable energy sources are the cheapest form of electricity generation. Onshore wind and solar have the potential to grow faster and thus reduce our dependence on natural gas sooner,” they wrote. Truss has said little so far about how it will improve home insulation, as the scrapping of the Green Home Grant last year left the UK without a national insulation scheme for those on average incomes. He has pledged to remove green levies, potentially including those paying for insulation for poor and vulnerable households. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. During her campaign for the Tory leadership, she also strongly rejected lifting planning barriers to onshore wind and solar farms. At least 15 million homes require energy efficiency improvements, but the most recent year in which a large number of homes were insulated was 2012. Since then, “the stop-start nature of energy efficiency policy has hindered the development of the supply chain.” the letter said. The Climate Change Commission warned earlier this year that increased North Sea gas production was unlikely to lower gas prices and could jeopardize the UK’s goal of reaching net zero emissions by in 2050. Deben and Armitt wrote that up to three quarters of UK households are at risk of fuel poverty. “The OBR expects gas to remain expensive, three to four times the pre-invasion average [of Ukraine] price, by 2027. Ninety percent of the recent increase in the energy price cap is due to changes in the price of natural gas. Addressing our dependence on fossil energy offers us the best way out of these crises,” they wrote. “The best policies for the consumer are those that support sustainable energy security and a low-carbon, low-cost energy system. The independent analysis of our respective organizations is that this will deliver a long-term return on investment and put the UK on a path to prosperity.”
