Draft Warm Home Discount (Scotland) Regulations 2026

Angus MacDonald Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 General Committees

[Mr Angus MacDonald (Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire) (LD)]

If the Minister will allow me, I will make more of an intervention than a speech. The Liberal Democrats very much welcome the £150—thank you very much—but I suspect that that figure was worked out on the basis of the average UK energy costs of approximately £1,750. In sunny Inverclyde, where people are wandering around in their Speedos, that would be fine, but an average fuel bill in the highlands of Scotland or the outer isles is much more likely to be £3,000 than £1,750, so £150 does not cut it. The outer isles and the west highlands have the highest level of fuel poverty in Britain.

In my office in Fort William, electricity costs 27p per kilowatt-hour; in my flat in London, gas costs 6p per kilowatt-hour. In the highlands, we are paying four times as much. I can only say that the current Government will have achieved their aim when they make it the same price to heat a property in rural Britain as in the middle of London.