After years of painfully high energy bills, diminishing household budgets and stalled investment, this year’s budget, on 26 November, should be the moment when the government finally starts to confront why the UK’s energy system is so expensive. And yet, if recent briefings suggesting that Labour will dramatically scale back the heat pump subsidy for households are to be believed, it is now repeating exactly the same mistakes as its predecessors.

People want relief from painful energy bills. In the long term, electrification is the only way to provide this. In practice, that means switching from gas boilers to heat pumps, shifting from petrol cars to electric vehicles: boosting access to technologies that are modern, cheaper to run, and are already becoming mainstream. At present, our energy system protects the legacy gas-based system, subsidising supply and penalising demand in ways that keep gas artificially cheap and electricity artificially expensive, even when electric technologies cost less to operate.

That is why recent briefings are so alarming. The Treasury is reportedly considering scrapping the energy company obligation (ECO), which is the UK’s only large-scale, long-running scheme that funds home insulation and efficiency upgrades for low-income households. If this cut goes ahead, the warm homes plan is likely to be gutted. Briefings also suggest that the government will impose a new pay-per-mile tax on........

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