National Energy Action Director of Policy Peter Smith on the government’s landmark Warm Homes Plan and what’s still missing or requires more detail…
In what appeared to be a never-ending saga of ‘will they, won’t they’, the UK Government has now finally published the much-awaited Warm Homes Plan.
National Energy Action’s slogan reads: ‘Action for warm homes’. We are one of the few charities with a sole mission to try to make homes warmer and healthier. For us, and many of our charity’s supporters, the publication of a plan with ‘warm homes’ in the title, let alone with details of billions of pounds of central investment, was critical. Would it allow us to assess if, and how, we are able to utilise new policy drivers to end fuel poverty? Could this still be a vital decade of delivery for warmer homes?
Further details on the government’s plans were also particularly important, given the preceding announcement in the Budget to radically alter the current fuel poverty landscape. The Chancellor announced the end of by far the biggest current fuel poverty and energy efficiency programme – the GB-wide Energy Company Obligation (ECO).
Funding for new and existing schemes
We now know about £5 billion of central investment will be channelled towards lifting 1 million households out of fuel poverty by 2030. Local authorities and social housing providers will continue to be at the forefront of energy efficiency delivery plans, potentially helping to target some of the most fuel poor areas across England. The ‘Plan’ says this will be achieved initially through the existing Warm Homes Social Housing Fund and the Warm Homes Local Grant before they look to consolidate both into a single area-based scheme. Uncertainty remains, however, and there is a pledge to publish more details by spring 2026.
A major focus of the plan was also on deploying new or emerging domestic energy technologies. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme will now have an increased budget. As well as supporting the deployment of more heat pumps, there will be an expansion in the range of technologies to choose from. There is also a commitment to triple the number of homes with solar through a new loan scheme, the Warm Homes Fund. A total of £5bn in financial transactions will be deployed, including £1.7 billion already committed to low and zero interest consumer loans; this is the section of the document with the least detail, more very rough vision than a plan.
How the Warm Homes Agency can reach people
All of this activity will be overseen by a new Warm Homes Agency, which will be a dedicated public body to support households with information, backed by a reformed system of consumer protection and changes to the MCS regime. The specifications of the agency will be drawn up in the remainder of 2026, and work is underway to improve consumer protections.
At National Energy Action, it will be our priority to ensure the Agency understands and makes provision for reaching people who face multiple, severe problems and have little notion of how energy efficiency and renewables can help them. We often see the need to guide and handhold people through the installation of energy efficiency measures and low-carbon heating systems. Irrespective of the upfront or maintenance costs, people often feel retrofit or new technologies are disruptive to install and come with the fear of damage to their homes. This basic barrier continues to deter too many households from taking positive steps to decarbonise their homes.
National Energy Action has found that this reticence can be addressed by working alongside locally embedded colleagues. They have, or are able to build, trust with the community to help households understand the potential benefits of measures and support them through the process if they choose to go ahead, including liaising with installers before, during and after the works.
The importance of this handholding support can’t be underemphasised; it is the vital connective tissue between people with busy lives and the funding streams to have the work carried out. This is particularly the case in instances where households have very limited household incomes, have already had poor experiences of energy-related schemes and/or have a long-term illness or severe disability, which means they are fearful of any further changes in their lives.
The private rented sector
Equally important, the UK Government has also confirmed it will strengthen minimum energy efficiency standards (MEES) in both the private and social rented sector by 2030. It is almost nine years since the UK Government first set out its intention to extend MEES in the private rented sector. The government now owes it to renters to get on with it. We hope the necessary regulations will be laid without delay, allowing landlords to start to improve their properties as soon as possible. And to give local authorities time – or as much time as possible – to put in place the resources and support needed within local enforcement teams to police these new requirements.
The new Fuel Poverty Strategy
In slightly muted fashion, the 2026 Fuel Poverty Strategy for England was also published. Although there had been some consideration on moving the goal posts, it’s welcome that the government intends to retain the legal 2030 fuel poverty target to ensure as many fuel-poor households as ‘reasonably practicable’ are upgraded to EPC Band C by 2030. This, however, is now being described as a milestone rather than an end point, and they describe the much more modest ambition to lift one million more households out of fuel poverty by 2030 as a more realistic aim. They will consult on a new legal framework for post‑2030 to ensure continued progress. In the meantime, they will also stick with measuring fuel poverty in England based on a household’s income and energy efficiency levels.
Do we have a plan for warm homes?
By now, many organisations, including our own, have sent out briefings of what’s in the Plan. But a crucial question remains: do we now have a plan for warm homes? The short answer is probably ‘not yet’. We do have very welcome further details of some vital components of a coherent plan. At National Energy Action, we also welcome the ongoing commitment to continue to invest in and prioritise what has increasingly been seen by some as a thorny and challenging area of public policy. We will continue to act on any opportunity to improve lives, health and well-being, and raise the prospect of lifting a million, maybe many more, households out of the day-to-day misery of fuel poverty.
To do that, we need to be more specific about key decisions on the evolution of low-income schemes and fill in some big gaps in how all types of households will receive adequate advice and support to make their homes warmer and cheaper to heat. Central government departments also need to invest time to embed the Plan across departments and policy areas, including within the 10 Year Health Plan, local authority enforcement and within their outcomes frameworks and the new Child Poverty Strategy. Addressing each of these areas requires effort, time but thankfully, not much money. The prize is ensuring that the Plan lives up to its name, supports the most vulnerable people, and not just the well-heeled early adopters of different technologies new grant schemes often serve.
We will be exploring how these new policy drivers can help unlock new approaches to end fuel poverty at our upcoming Annual Conference and Exhibition, taking place from Monday 9 to Wednesday 11 February 2026. We will also showcase wider opportunities for taking national and local action for warmer homes. Please join us for what we hope will be our biggest and most important annual flagship event to date.