The options are unattractive but a massively expanded warm homes scheme gets the vote here
It’s choose your poison time for a government that must know allowing low-income households to suffer the full blast of the scheduled rise in energy bills in April is a political non starter.
After six months of high gas prices in the wholesale market, the regulator Ofgem’s price-setting formula is likely to spit out a figure close to £2,000 on average for an annual dual-fuel bill, or a year-on-year increase of roughly £700. That is simply unaffordable for many. And the implied £20bn-ish hit to discretionary consumer spending will do little to encourage a whoosh of post-Omicron activity the Treasury is relying on in other areas of the economy. Some form of subsidy or smoothing mechanism for bills must be found.