Conservatives launch Cut My Bills campaign

• The Conservatives' Cut My Bills campaign is calling on the Government to adopt our Cheap Power Plan, which would cut everybody's electricity bill by 20%, or £165 for the average household, by axing the Carbon Tax on electricity generation and scrapping rip-off old wind subsidies.
• The Cut My Bills campaign is also calling on the Government to stop Ed Miliband's current wind auction, AR7, which experts say is going to lock the country into sky-high energy bills for decades.
• Labour promised to cut energy bills by £300, but since taking power, bills have risen by almost £200. Britain has one of the cleanest energy systems in the world, but it's also the most expensive – our priority has to be to bring down bills for families and businesses across the country.

Tomorrow [Friday 7th November 2025], the Conservatives will launch the Cut My Bills campaign, building on the Party Conference announcement of the Cheap Power Plan – a plan to cut everybody's electricity bill by 20% instantly – or £165 for the average household.

The campaign, launching nationwide alongside a new website, will allow people to see how much they could save and sign up to back the Cheap Power Plan.

Labour promised to cut household energy bills by £300, but since taking power, bills have risen by almost £200.

The Cut My Bills campaign calls on Ed Miliband to back the Conservative plan to put cheap energy first through three key steps:

1. Axe the Carbon Tax

The Carbon Tax makes up a third of the wholesale price of electricity and makes electricity artificially expensive. It was designed to drive coal off the system, but since we no longer use coal and we need gas as reliable power to keep the lights on, it simply pushes up the price of gas, wind, solar, and nuclear too. Axing the Carbon tax would save the average household £75 on their electricity bills.

The Conservatives are also challenging Labour not to load more costs onto gas, including through new levies or taxes on boilers, which would make heating more expensive and punish ordinary families for trying to stay warm.

1. Scrap Ed Miliband's old wind subsidies (Renewable Obligation)

These lucrative subsidies are paid to wind and solar farms on top of the market price of electricity, meaning some wind farms are receiving up to three times the market price for their electricity – all paid for by consumers on their electricity bills. We are calling on the Government to use primary legislation to repeal this subsidy scheme, which will reduce the average household's electricity bills by £90.

Together, the measures in the Cheap Power Plan would cut electricity bills by 20 per cent for everyone instantly.

1. Stop Ed Miliband's latest wind auction, AR7

We are also calling on the Labour Government to halt the AR7 wind auction. Experts like Prof Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford, say that Miliband's current renewables auction will lock Britain into paying higher energy prices for decades. The prices Ed Miliband is set to pay for offshore wind to meet his Clean Power 2030 targets are much higher than the current cost of electricity and significantly higher than the cost of electricity from gas without the Carbon Tax. He has also extended the wind developers' subsidy contracts to twenty years – meaning we will be locked into higher prices for longer. It won't just be us paying these prices, but our children too.

The UK has already halved its emissions since 1990, reducing emissions by more than any other major economy. But global emissions are rising and countries like China are not following our lead. Continuing down this path of higher energy bills, job losses, and lower economic growth will make us a warning, not an example, to the rest of the world. We must put cheap, reliable energy and a stronger economy first.

This approach reflects the Conservative Party's commitment to delivering the cheap, reliable energy families and businesses need to power a stronger economy.

Claire Coutinho MP, Shadow Energy Secretary, said:

“Labour promised to cut energy bills by £300, but instead they are locking us into higher prices for decades. The Cut My Bills campaign is for families to call on politicians to focus on cheaper energy – we already have some of the cleanest electricity in the world, but it's also the most expensive.

“Our Cheap Power Plan will fix this. We'll axe the Carbon Tax, scrap Miliband's rip-off subsidies, and cut every household's electricity bill by 20 per cent instantly or £165 for the average family.

“If you want people to drive electric cars or switch to electric heating, make electricity cheap. If you want to build data centres, create jobs and grow the economy, make electricity cheap.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Energy bills have gone up under Labour:

• Labour dropped their pledge to cut energy bills by £300, despite promising it during the election. Throughout the general election campaign Labour pledged to cut energy bills by £300, but have overseen an increase in energy bills, and have failed to recommit to their pledge now they are in government (The Daily Mail, 5 September 2024, link). 

• The energy price cap will have increased by £187 since Labour came to power. The energy price cap for July to September 2024 was £1,568 compared to £1,755 for October to December 2025, a £187 increase (Ofgem, Energy Price Cap, accessed 7 August 2025, link).

Net Zero has increased our energy bills:

• Almost half of the cost of producing electricity in Britain is a result of Net Zero spending, taxes and levies. Research by the Renewable Energy Foundation found that the equivalent of 40 per cent of the cost of producing electricity in Britain, £22 billion a year, is paying for the costs of renewables and Net Zero, including various renewable subsidies, the Carbon Tax, backup for when renewables cannot generate power, paying wind farms to switch off when it's too windy, and the cost of building the pylons required to connect renewables to the grid. All of these costs are recovered through our energy bills. (Renewable Energy Foundation, UK Renewable Electricity Subsidy Totals: 2002 to the Present Day, accessed 26 September 2025, link).

• A third of the wholesale price of electricity is the Carbon Tax. The Carbon Tax, comprised of the Emissions Trading Scheme and Carbon Price Support, accounts for around 30 per cent of the wholesale cost of electricity. Both the Climate Change Committee and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero accept that the Carbon Tax increases the wholesale price of electricity. This is a policy choice designed to aid the transition to Net Zero. (Ember, European electricity prices and costs, accessed 26 September 2025, link; Climate Change Committee, Energy Prices and Bills: Annex, March 2017, link; DESNZ, Form, 19 September 2025, link).

• The Renewable Obligation subsidy scheme has increased electricity bills by over £67 billion. Ofgem data shows that families and businesses have spent at least £67 billion subsidising renewables through the ROC scheme since 2002. (Ofgem, Renewables Obligation: Annual Report, March 2025, link).

• Ed Miliband's decision to double the subsidies for offshore wind in 2008 means many wind farm developers are paid almost three times the market price for their output. The average wholesale electricity price in 2024 was around £72 per MWh. The ROC subsidy rate is £67.06 per ROC. Many offshore wind farms are entitled to two ROCs per MWh on topof the market price, meaning they are paid £206 per MWh for every unit of electricity. For comparison, the cost of electricity from gas without a Carbon Tax is around £55 per MWh. (Ofgem, Renewables Obligation: buy-out price, 18 February 2025, link).

The Climate Change Act 2008 – passed by Ed Miliband under the last Labour Government – is forcing the UK to reduce emissions by rigid targets, making us poorer:

• The Climate Change Act commits the UK to reducing emissions by rigid targets to achieve Net Zero by 2050, forcing the UK to prioritise climate targets over the economy and the cost of living. The UK's carbon budgets – mandated by the CCA – set a legally binding limiton the UK's greenhouse gas emissions in order to achieve Net Zero by 2050, without flexibility to limit the impact on our economy or the cost of living. (Climate Change Act, accessed 30 September 2025, link). 

• The Climate Change Act forces Ministers to make decisions that increase energy bills, deindustrialise Britain, and make people poorer. Because the emission reduction targets are legally binding, Ministers are forced to impose policies like the Carbon Tax, renewables subsidies, the Boiler Tax, and petrol car bans which increase the cost of electricity and take money out of people's pockets solely for the purpose of meeting climate targets.

• The Climate Change Act pretends that all that matters are the emissions that are produced within the UK's borders. The Climate Change Act only counts territorial emissions. If a business shuts down in the UK and moves its operations to a country with dirtier energy like China, which still runs on coal, that is counted as a win for our climate targets – but globalemissions have increased and Britain has become poorer. This is not good for Britain or tackling climate change. (Climate Change Act, accessed 30 September 2025, link). 

The Conservatives will Axe the Carbon Tax, scrap Ed's extortionate wind subsidies, and repeal the Climate Change Act to cut energy bills:

• The Conservatives will repeal the Climate Change Act 2008. The Climate Change Act established legally binding, five-yearly carbon reduction targets. These policy changes would likely not be possible if we had to stick to our legally binding climate targets under the Act. This is proof that the Climate Change Act forces Ministers to make decisions that increase the cost of energy and make people poorer. (Climate Change Act, accessed 26 September 2025, link).

• The Conservatives will axe the Carbon Tax for electricity generation, saving families £75 a year. The Carbon Tax (the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and Carbon Price Support (CPS)) will be scrapped for electricity generation. This will reduce wholesale electricity prices by around 30 per cent, or around £26 per MWh, saving households £75 per year on their electricity bills. The ETS and CPS are taxes that are charged on gas power stations when they generate electricity, which are passed straight through to households and businesses in their energy bills. (Conservative Party Analysis of DESNZ data, 26 September 2025).

• The Conservatives will scrap Ed Miliband's extortionate old renewable subsidies, saving families £90 a year. The Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC) scheme pays subsidies to wind and solar farms and other renewable generators, who are paid up to three timesthe market price of electricity. These subsidies are paid by every household and almost all businesses through their electricity bills. The ROC subsidies are reliant on primary legislation, meaning they can be stopped at any point. Scrapping this would save households £90. (Ofgem, Policy cost allowance methodology, accessed 26 September 2025, link).