Westminster Hall
4 November 2026
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Westminster Hall House of Commons
Follow its sittings00:10 - 00:17
Speaker 2
Order. Jamie Stone to move the motion.
00:17 - 02:10
Speaker 1
I beg to move the motion as in my name as printed in the Order Paper. Madam Chair, I do want to thank all the many members who have come along today to this important debate. It's about addressing the growing impact of rising heating oils on rural households. And I'm very grateful for the opportunity to lead this debate. It's an issue which is causing real anxiety, I would say the length and breadth of the United Kingdom and particularly in my far north constituency of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross.
And I would say that, in the Highlands of Scotland, for many people, the using heating oil is not a choice, but it's the only practical way of heating their homes, especially during the winter months when it's a lot colder in other parts of the UK. This is because we know why, but just go houses homes are scattered across a vast geography and where access to the main gas grid is not really accessible. In fact, it's not many access points in my constituency. So, lots of households who rely on heating oil don't benefit from the same protections as those who are connected to the main gas grid and electricity networks. This is a point that's been made several times in this place.
So, the regulatory safeguards don't really cover these people and they're very much hit by sudden price increases. Now, I my office tells me that across the UK, about 1 and 1/2 million homes rely on heating oil, and a substantial proportion of this number are in rural communities. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has highlighted that rural households typically spend 10 to 20% more on everyday essentials compared to urban counterparts. They're also more susceptible to higher levels of fuel poverty. This is because they are often in older properties, which detached, more difficult to insulate, meaning they're poor energy efficiency.
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