UK Energy Sources and Cost of Energy

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The Government are open to all eventualities as far as this crisis is concerned and are keeping the position under review on a very regular basis. The noble Lord will know that immediate support has been for heating oil, particularly for those customers who are off grid in the UK. The Government recently announced over for supplies of heating oil, with particular reference to Northern Ireland, where a substantial proportion of the population are dependent on oil for heating. Of that £50 million-odd, £17 million has gone to Northern Ireland for that purpose.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Hintze (Con)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

We will hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will agree that the cleanest, greenest, cheapest and most secure energy is the energy that you do not need to use. France, for example, is far ahead of us in avoiding wasteful use of energy, with measures such as switching off the lighting for shops, ensuring that offices switch off lights during the night and taking measures to stop wasting energy, such as with video screens with advertising. What steps are the Government taking to reduce the wastage of energy, which will make us all more secure?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The first issue is, as the noble Baroness suggests, the efficient use of energy by more intelligent means and planning how that energy is deployed on a highly intelligent basis. That is activity that the Government are advanced on as far as the management of our energy system is concerned. The second point is, as the noble Baroness mentions, the energy security from energy that is not used. The Warm Homes Plan that the Government have recently introduced—a multi-billion programme over a number of years to increase the energy efficiency and resilience of people’s homes, particularly those in fuel poverty—will produce not only a win for fuel poverty but a substantial win for the efficiency with which energy is used and the amount of energy that is used in the domestic sphere.