Second Delegated Legislation Committee

14 April 2026

No chapters available yet

Second Delegated Legislation Committee Tue, 14 Apr 2026 House of Commons

00:03 - 02:42

Speaker 1

It's a pleasure your chairmanship, miss Spaz. I beg to move that the committee has considered the draft energy prices act 2022 extension of time limit regulations. This government is fully committed to fighting people's corner to tackle the cost of living crisis across the energy system and more widely, we're acting on this as a matter of priority. And a number of steps were taken in last year's budget, and we have since gone further at the budget alongside several positive changes to help working people with the cost of living. The chancellor announced that we'd be removing costs for energy bills from this month.

I want to be clear what these costs are. First, we are closing the energy company obligation scheme, removing its costs from bills and instead funding home upgrades for energy efficiency via the warm homes plan. Members may recall that recent regulations extended eco four, but only to enable its orderly closure with no cost on bills from this month. And second, we transfer 75% of the renewables obligation scheme costs attributable to domestic energy supply to instead be funded by the Exchequer. The core renewables obligation incentive for relevant regulators continues.

These were principal decisions to fund more of the investment we need from public spending rather than from bills, which is the right and progressive thing to do. It's thanks to those decisions that typical household energy bills fell by 7% or more than 100 from the April 1. Let me briefly set out how we delivered the removal of the RO cost for bills before I come on to how these regulations will enable that to continue. Under the RO, energy suppliers purchased certificates from relevant renewables generators and previously recovered the full cost of those purchases from consumers. From the April 1, suppliers have been required to only recover 25% of those costs consumers.

For domestic consumers as standard variable tariffs, Ofgem's energy price cap, which was published on the February 25, factored in reduced policy costs reflecting the RMO changes that we're debating this morning. The price cap has therefore fallen by 7% or £117 to £1,641 per year for a typical dual fuel customer paying by direct debit. It will remain held down at that level until the June. In addition, the government issued legally binding direction to suppliers on the March 18, requiring them to also pass on the full savings to domestic consumers on fixed tariffs. With suppliers no longer recovering 75% of the cost of the RO from household energy bills, we are instead providing equivalent monthly grant funding.

The rest of the transcript is for Pro customers

Unlock the full transcript, chat, and every analysis feature with Polyfact Pro.

The video itself stays free to watch, in full, no account needed.

Ask anything about this video — I analyse its transcript to answer.