Warm Home Discount (Amendment) Regulations 2025

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Grand Committee

Considered in Grand Committee

17:09

Moved by

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Warm Home Discount (Amendment) Regulations 2025.

Relevant document: 30th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)]

My Lords, these regulations were laid before the House on 19 June 2025. Before I proceed, I draw the Committee’s attention to a correction slip that was issued on 4 July in relation to the draft instrument. It corrected a typographical error on page three of the draft regulations that are the subject of this debate. The change was from Her Majesty’s Treasury to His Majesty’s Treasury. Clearly, this does not affect the substance or intent of the legislation.

In February 2025 we consulted on expanding the warm home discount scheme, which provides low-income and vulnerable households with a £150 rebate off their energy bills. Today, we are considering the regulations that will allow us to implement those changes and bring this much-needed relief to around 2.7 million additional households. Since we took office, this Government have been committed to alleviating fuel poverty. Our review of the 2021 fuel poverty strategy made clear that progress has stalled and that we need a new plan to speed up progress on tackling fuel poverty. There are two principal ways of doing this. The first is by improving household energy performance and the second by expanding direct bill support to make energy more affordable.

Starting with the first, at the spending review in June, the Chancellor confirmed £13.2 billion for our warm home plan that will transform the housing stock and improve energy efficiency across the country, ensuring that less money is wasted on leaking, ageing homes that are expensive to heat. However, while we press on with that vital work, we recognise that many households remain at risk of fuel poverty and cannot wait until later in this Parliament to feel the benefits. That is why we are also expanding the warm home discount, providing vital support to those who need it most. This support will be available immediately, coming into effect this winter and, importantly, consumers do not need to take any action to receive it.

Since 2011, the warm home discount has helped around 3 million low-income and vulnerable households every year by reducing their energy bills when it is most needed. Under the current scheme, around 1 million low-income pensioners in receipt of pension credit guarantee credit receive the £150 warm home discount as an automatic rebate on their energy bills, and more than 2 million low-income and vulnerable households also receive rebates.

The statutory instrument before us seeks to amend the Warm Home Discount (England and Wales) Regulations 2022 to allow changes to the eligibility criteria for this coming winter so that more households can receive rebates. It will also extend the time period in which rebate notices can be issued to suppliers, so that as many as possible can be issued before the current regulations expire on 31 March 2026. The SI also amends the Warm Home Discount (Scotland) Regulations 2022 to increase suppliers’ non-core spending obligation by an amount considered to be commensurate to the expected increase in England and Wales.

This SI is a result of our consultation in February, in which we proposed to remove the high cost to heat threshold that we believed was unfairly excluding some vulnerable households from the scheme. This threshold often meant that families in almost identical circumstances were treated differently, with some receiving the rebate while others missed out. The current system also excludes many households in smaller properties because their home is not classified as high cost to heat, meaning that our support has not been reaching some of those who need it the most.

Removing the high cost to heat threshold will make all energy bill payers who receive a qualifying means-tested benefit eligible for the warm home discount. By bringing around 2.7 million additional households into the scheme, it pushes the total number of households that will receive the discount in winter 2025-26 up to around 6 million, which is one in five households in the UK.

We have a statutory duty to tackle fuel poverty. It is our duty as a Government to break down the barriers that prevent some of the most vulnerable families in the country receiving the support they need. The proposed regulations will help us to achieve this. I beg to move.

17:15

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for presenting the draft regulations before us. I am conscious that this is not her department. Nevertheless, with her Cumbrian background—not just background but experience—she will be conscious of the number of families in fuel poverty, in particular those off the gas grid.

One of the challenges around the warm home discount is that it is focused solely on electricity bill payers, so there are some issues there around aspects of fuel poverty and how it gets distributed. I am conscious that it has generally been a success; I am going to sound a note of caution though. This looks like a potentially generous package. Of course it is: it is the second, if not the third, package brought in by this Government that is very generous to households that receive universal credit. We have seen the extension of free school meals. With the Royal Assent coming through today, we will see a big uplift for everybody who is on universal credit. I think that the Government underestimated how much all this is going to cost, partly in the impact assessment for the Act that has just gone through but also in these regulations. Even now, there are more people on universal credit than it seems has been considered by the impact assessment for these draft regulations.

There is also a different way of thinking about this. These measures are increasing incentives for people not to increase their earnings and to stay on universal credit as long as they can. That is part of what the Government need to think about in these regulations.

There is another oddity here. Changing the criteria will mean the number of households receiving the discount rising from an estimated 3.4 million—around 3.1 million in England and around 300,000 in Scotland —to an estimated 6.1 million, although I think that it will be a lot more and it will, therefore, cost a lot more. People’s average energy bills will go up by about two-thirds, but everybody pays that levy. Consequently, those estimated 3.4 million people will be worse off as a consequence of the rebate now applying to a lot more people. Before, the cost of the levy was estimated at £22. The net effect is £150 minus £22, which is £128. With the average levy now going up to £37 a year, the logical consequence is of that benefit ending up dropping to £113 per household. I appreciate that the finer points may not work out quite like that in some of the calculations, but the Government cannot do this in a very detailed way. So we are in this odd situation where those households with the highest estimated energy costs will get less rebate to help them; I do not understand how that is going to help fuel poverty.

I appreciate, by the way, that the Minister does not have policy responsibility here. I am not sure what sort of response I might get from DESNZ, but it would be quite useful to get some thinking on that.

The reason why I think the costs here have been underestimated is that, in May this year, the UC statistics showed that 6.6 million households were on universal credit, 6.1 million of which are getting payments. That is not simply the transfer from existing legacy benefits to universal credit; there is an element of that, but that number will continue to increase because people are still claiming universal credit. On top of that, there are around 1.4 million people receiving pension credit and around 1.1 million pensioners receiving housing benefit. This is why the figures start to get bigger and bigger. There will undoubtedly be an overlap between the 1.4 million on pension credit and the 1.1 million on housing benefit; nevertheless, this will show, I think, that the costs here have been underestimated. I fear that the levy will, in effect, be higher for other bill payers. It is not the same as the winter fuel payment, because that came from taxpayers—this is coming from every bill payer.

I should also point out to noble Lords, based on a response to an Answer, that there are 200,000 households on universal credit with an income of more than £35,000. They will continue to receive this benefit now. The brilliant DWP—I love it so much—is fantastic at getting the matching. So I would be grateful to understand why DESNZ estimates that 28% of the 8.1 million people it thinks are eligible for this will not receive the warm home discount due to data-matching. Surely more should be done to kick the energy companies. I am concerned that park home residents are excluded. They are a particular group who have a nice life but tend to be on pretty low incomes, but I understand some of the complexities.

I found it astonishing in a different way, although it was perhaps a bit welcome, that there was a 150% uplift of people receiving this in London compared to the rest of the country. That is pretty high, given that more than double the number of households in the south-east will receive this. Clearly, this has not necessarily been done on what might be considered traditional regional adjustments. It is important also, regarding aspects in annexe 5 of the assessments, that the NHS estimates that the preventable costs would be about £540 million. Now the cost on these bills is going up to £1 billion, but I am convinced it will be more like £1.1 or £1.2 billion.

Of course I am not going to try and vote down this instrument, because that is not what we do in the Lords. I wish I had spotted the consultation earlier so that I could have contributed then but, when we come to the post-implementation review of the regulations in a few years’ time, the figures will be telling and Ministers should be looking out for this a lot more quickly. Genuinely, the impact will be that benefits from this levy will decrease, as opposed to increase.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for stepping into the breach and presenting the regulations in the form of the statutory instrument before us. I share and echo the concerns of my noble friend, without going into any great length, who was an excellent Secretary of State at the Department of Work and Pensions at a most difficult time during Covid—a big applause to her and her department at the time, and the work that it continues to do.

I welcome much of the content of the regulations. I forgot to declare my interest as president of National Energy Action and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Water, which will be significant when I come on to smart meters. However, the Whip on duty will remind me that I have said this in the past, so I am going to say it again because I want to record it at every opportunity. I do not know if it is something that the department might look at but, if the noble Baroness is not able to answer today, can she write and place a copy of the letter in the Library? Those households that are most in need of energy, such as in the north of England, Scotland and many vulnerable areas would have qualified for, say, £300, so fewer households would have benefited, but it would have had a much bigger impact on fuel poverty in that regard. Is that something that the Government are minded to look at?

Again, it is not part of these regulations but it is something that National Energy Action would like to place on the record but that I do not necessarily agree with. It would like to see a social tariff. My understanding is that there was a social tariff for energy prior to the warm home discount. I was trying to explain to NEA that you either have one or the other. Social tariffs operate quite effectively in the water sector, but I do not see how we can have both. I presume that that is something that the department under successive Governments has looked at. I should like to find out and have placed on the record for National Energy Action’s benefit what the current Government’s thinking is. Are we going to stick with the warm home discount, which would be my preference, or are we going to have both a warm home discount and the social tariffs?

My more radical thinking, when the Minister was referring to the contents of the regulation and the result of the consultation, was about transforming the housing stock. The Government have granted £13.2 million, not an insignificant sum of money, in that regard. I have a mounting concern that there is housing stock—I see this locally, and I am sure it is in other parts of the country as well—that would benefit from just a bit of an upgrade in having double-glazed windows and maybe a bit of stuff in the wall cavity areas and the roofs to make those houses more habitable. Obviously that would reduce the cost of heating, so it is not going out the window or through the walls, so to speak.

The plan I propose is that we reverse VAT. Take VAT off renovations and put it on newbuild. That way, I argue that it would be neutral. Obviously, it would pass on to the purchasers of new houses, but it would greatly increase the housing stock. Again, that is not in the regulations, but is it something that the Government might consider?

In preparing for today, I am grateful to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for its 30th report, where it did a short analysis on this. Its conclusion, as my noble friend Lady Coffey referred to, was:

“We note that the percentage increase in the levy on billpayers and the impact of the expansion of the Scheme on the number of recipients and overall spending are expected to be significant”.


It is no secret that the major parties are deeply concerned about the cost of living crisis, which is ongoing. We have had the higher cost, for those who are not on a fixed tariff, of energy prices going forward for this winter. As my noble friend pointed out, that is going to mean a higher increase for those households that do not benefit to pay for the significant amount of money, which we know to be approximately £1 billion, up from £600 million in the past.

The Government could look at other measures as well. I have long been interested in the possibility of having a smart meter. Anna Walker did a report on water efficiency at the same time as there were the reports by Martin Cave on competition and Michael Pitt on flooding in about 2007 or 2008. Of those three reports, the Walker report on water efficiency never really got any legs. However, she gave very useful advice like, “Don’t run your water when you’re brushing your teeth, but in particular don’t run the hot water because you’re literally putting hot water that you have heated down the system, which is ridiculous”.

Is there a possibility that energy and water would both be governed by the same smart meter? Are the Government aware that currently—my authority for this is the Radio 4 programme “You and Yours”, which I happened to listen to on, I think, Friday—there is evidence that smart meters do not work in rural areas? I know the Minister lives in a deeply rural area. I have been reluctant to fit a smart meter for that reason; there is no point in having one fitted if it is not going to work. Apparently they will give you all these other gadgets to help it work, but still it will not.

If smart meters are not working and people are not able to monitor true energy use then that is one point, but if we were able to develop smart meters that covered both water consumption and energy consumption then that would be a big plus for households. So I give a cautious welcome to these regulations, and I am grateful for the opportunity to make the few comments that I have.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, this instrument brings forward much needed and real expansion of a vital scheme that we believe will have significant positive impacts. We welcome the proposed expansion of the warm home discount, which aims to bring financial relief to millions more households across Great Britain that are grappling with the brutal realities of fuel poverty and escalating energy bills.

What we have here is, in essence, a doubling of those who will be eligible for the £150 rebate on energy bills. This will bring vital relief to many families who are struggling, but the scale of the challenge is immense. In England alone, some 2.7 million households are trapped in fuel poverty. The average fuel poverty gap has soared to an alarming £407—a near 60% increase since 2020 in real terms. Disturbingly, the number of households forced to spend over 10% of their income on energy bills, after housing costs, has more than doubled since 2020 to 9 million households in 2024. Furthermore, energy debt and arrears hit a record £3.85 billion in December 2024.

17:30

More than numbers, these are real people and families living in cold, damp homes who are struggling under financial strain to keep warm and safe. This has real impacts on the most vulnerable—those who are in poverty, those who have disabilities or those who are old and have ill health. So this instrument is a significant step forward and we welcome it.

Turning to England and Wales, as the Minister highlighted, the eligibility restatement removes the high cost to heat threshold, and we welcome this. In Scotland, different arrangements exist, and the instrument will proportionately increase the size of the scheme to allow more households on means-tested benefits to receive support.

The impact is substantial. DESNZ estimates that this will bring approximately 2.7 million additional households into the warm home discount scheme, bringing the total, as the Minister said, to 6.1 million in receipt of this for the winter 2025-26. So the average number of poor households will rise from approximately 30% to 45% across Great Britain. With this comes almost a doubling in spending: we are moving from roughly £600 million to approximately £1 billion, and the cost to bill payers will rise from £15 to around £37 each.

While we note—the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee noted this, as has already been said—that this is a significant increase for bill payers, we accept that this redistribution is unavoidable in the short term. Beyond this, more work is desperately needed, particularly on energy market reforms. I fully understand that the Minister is stepping in but, with the rejection of zonal pricing, I want to press the Government on their plans. When can we find plans from this Government to bring about energy market reform? We welcome the £13.2 billion that has been announced for the warm home scheme. The other side to this is better insulation of our homes to help people reduce their energy bills.

I want to ask the Minister a couple of questions on the substance of this SI. On data matching, I recognise the increase that has already been mentioned; DESNZ estimates that 2.4 million households—some 28%—might not be data matched. There are consequences of failed data matches. I know that there are plans in place, with letters and everything else, and I recognise that these are new and evolving systems and that data is being shared, but I push the Government to look to the future and at how these data matching systems and their robustness can be improved. The more that we can do to enrol these people automatically, the better, so I push the Government to do more on that.

On the helpline, I want to ask some questions about capacity. With the number of people who might need to contact the helpline, can the Minister give me some reassurance that the helplines will be fit for purpose, that they will help people who are perhaps not best adapted to make use of technology and that they are able to deal with the level of inquiries that might be coming their way?

With this instrument has come a fairly significant administrative burden. In the Government’s figures, the cost is £20 million for suppliers and a further £15 million in costs from the Government’s side on these matters. Obviously, every pound that is spent on administration is a pound that is also added to consumers’ energy bills. I just push and encourage the Government, through this process, to try to learn lessons and to see what more we can do to streamline some of these processes to reduce some of those burdens.

I just talk for a minute about the timeliness of payments. There are, in effect, only two points in the year when you can join the scheme. We had a cut-off period in August and, if people had not applied by then, they would not get payments until after December. Information is being shared between the department and the energy suppliers, so can we get to a point where we have monthly updates and, as applications come in, this £150 can be split into monthly payments for those who have been missed off? If you miss that automatic enrolment, you miss three or four months’ worth of payments, which obviously has considerable impact for these families.

I briefly turn to Scotland and the consultation results. I believe that the Government’s intention is to get to the point of greater alignment and automatic alignment regarding uptake in Scotland. Can the Minister confirm that it is the Government’s intention that, after 2026, Ministers in London, working with devolved colleagues, will push for those changes in Scotland?

I also raise the park homes issue. I have a holiday caravan—I do not know if I need to declare that—so I realise just how cold they are and how quickly they give up the heat. I know the special arrangements that exist when you live in a park home, in that it is the park itself that provides you with the heat, and they often overcharge you. I just suggest to the Minister that, if you are in a park home and you are fully resident, it should be recorded in the council tax system. I see that the Government do not really have a road map for dealing with this, but these people live in very badly insulated homes and often in real poverty. Is there a possibility of the Government exploring a council tax rebate, perhaps, and then reclaiming that back from the energy companies as a way of trying to resolve that?

Looking to the future, these regulations come to an end in 2026. I encourage the Government to do a rigorous evaluation at that point. What is the thinking in terms of planning for a longer-term framework around these policies? Would it be possible to have some parliamentary pre-legislative scrutiny of those plans?

My final point is that I would encourage the Government to properly evaluate and monitor the health and associated benefits that will come from these payments. Living in fuel poverty has huge impacts on people’s health and there are knock-on costs for the NHS. As part of the evaluation process, it would be good if the Government could take the time to analyse the changes from this additional spending. From these Benches, however, we really welcome these proposals.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to this statutory instrument, which proposes a further expansion of the warm home discount scheme.

I start by confirming that His Majesty’s loyal Opposition fully support the principle of shielding vulnerable households from fuel poverty. The extension of support to an additional 2.7 million households, including working-age families with children, is of course a positive and welcome step, particularly as we approach another potentially challenging winter. There is no doubt that many people will benefit from this measure.

However, while the Government’s intentions are commendable, their method of implementation raises important questions. Our understanding is that this expansion is not being funded through general taxation or through efforts to improve efficiency within the energy system. Instead, it relies on increasing green levies on energy bills—the very costs that will be borne by working households. According to the Government’s impact assessment and as we have heard from noble Lords, this will result in an average increase of £15 per household per year, bringing the total cost of the warm home discount to £37. That represents a 60% rise to the average dual fuel bill payer, and it should be highlighted that this was not prominently featured in the announcement. This approach surely risks creating a circular dynamic. Higher energy costs driven by policy decisions are then partially mitigated by support schemes funded, conversely, by those same rising costs. While the short-term relief is real, the medium- to long- term implications deserve scrutiny.

We must also consider the broader context. The Government have pledged to reduce energy bills by £300 per year, a commitment that seems increasingly difficult to reconcile with policies that contribute to rising costs. This statutory instrument, while helpful to some, may inadvertently deepen our reliance on cross-subsidies to mask the underlying changes in our energy strategy. The ambition to reach clean power by 2030 is totally laudable, but challenging. If the path taken results in higher bills for ordinary working families, we must ask whether the strategy is serving its intended purpose. Would it not be optimal to agree that clarity and simplicity often yield the best outcomes? If our goal is to reduce fuel poverty, which it absolutely should be, then should we not focus on making energy supply more abundant and affordable, not more expensive and constrained?

A more balanced approach to funding the energy transition is needed, one that prioritises domestic supply, domestic storage and nuclear alongside renewables. It is time for greater transparency about the costs and trade-offs involved, because the current path places a disproportionate burden on those hard-working people least able to bear it. For these reasons, while we support the principle behind this measure, we urge the Government to reconsider the funding mechanism and the broader strategy that it reflects.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this important debate on an important issue for their contributions and for the broad support that the Committee has expressed for this statutory instrument. I shall cover the questions as best I can. First, the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, talked about the fact that the scheme relates to electricity bills. She referenced the issues around rural heating—she mentioned Cumbria, where I live. It is a real issue for rural areas. We need to move away from fossil fuels. There are some challenges in rural areas on how we do that. I know that the department is working hard on this to understand those challenges because the transition needs to be countrywide, not just in one area and not another.

The noble Baroness also asked about universal credit. It is probably best if I ask my colleagues in the DWP to respond to that because I do not have the information and officials in DESNZ would not, so we will pass that on to the DWP if that is okay with her. She also asked about lower benefits to households. I stress that the impact assessment is based on our best estimates, but its purpose is to help those who are on low-income and means-tested benefits because that is the best way for us to get directly to the people who need the most support.

17:45

Like the noble Earls, Lord Russell and Lord Effingham, the noble Baroness referred to the increase in bills, when clearly the ideal situation would be for bills to start to reduce. As I said in my opening speech, the Government have statutory duties to address and reduce fuel poverty and have to balance the needs of those most at risk with the impacts on other consumers. We are determined to cut bills as far and fast as we can, and meeting the £300 reduction by 2030 remains our objective. We need to offset the costs as much as possible by other savings on bills, such as reductions in operating costs or to the debt allowance. An example of that is the £8 reduction in operating costs that took effect in July. Ofgem continues to work on its debt strategy, with the aim of cutting the cost of servicing bad debt, which currently increases bills for everyone. So we are looking at other ways to bring bills down.

The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked about the future of the scheme, which ends next year. We are looking at the different options to improve the design of the scheme beyond the current regulations and will be consulting later in the year on the future of the scheme. I cannot remember who it was who said that they had missed the consultation—it might have been the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey—but that will be a consultation to look out for.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, asked why we were expanding it to more, rather than having a higher rate for fewer, recipients. The issue is that fuel poverty affects so many more people now and we know that, for many households, energy bills are just too high. Although the only way to reduce bills for the long term is to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and look at other ways to bring bills down, we feel that there is a real need for immediate support this coming winter. The warm home discount reduces the energy costs of low-income households and is therefore directly relevant to making progression towards our statutory duty to address and reduce fuel poverty. Expansion to all households on means-tested benefits will mean that more households on low incomes receive the discount. It will support more households that continue to struggle with affordability at the moment; in fact, if we do not do this, more households are likely to fall into fuel poverty, which we do not want to see.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, also asked about a social tariff. We know that more needs to be done to support households struggling with their bills, which is why we are expanding the discount. We are working with other departments to unlock the data that will enable us to target support more effectively to those who need help with their energy bills. We also know—we have discussed this in the House—that this issue is also relevant to other bills, such as water. We are actively exploring options, which will include social tariffs. That is an area that we are looking at.

The noble Earl, Lord Effingham, said that we need to look at how the energy market operates and that it is all part of the same issue. The key thing here is breaking our dependence on fossil fuel markets and volatile global gas prices. He mentioned nuclear; we are investing very strongly in new nuclear, including SMRs. That will be an important way forward in taking us off our fossil fuel dependence, as is the investment that we are making in renewable energy markets.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, had some very interesting things to say about housing stock and how VAT could operate. That is clearly not a DESNZ responsibility, so that will be a matter for HMT, but they are interesting thoughts. She also asked whether energy and water could be governed by the same smart meters and raised concerns about smart meters’ effectiveness in rural areas. I will ask officials to write with more detail about smart meters.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked about people on disability benefits. Clearly, disability benefits are not means-tested, but our analysis suggests that over 40% of people on disability benefits are also on means-tested benefits, so this change would make them eligible for the discount. As I have said, we need to balance the needs of people in fuel poverty who need support with bills with the impacts on other consumers’ bills. It is a difficult balance to achieve, and the problem is that, if we supported everybody on disability benefits, it would significantly increase the overall warm home discount cost. This is part of getting that balance right.

It is important to note that recipients of disability benefits are also supported through the warm home discount industry initiatives, which include, among other things, energy-efficiency measures and advice, financial assistance payments and debt write-off.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked about data matching. We strongly agree on improvements to data matching; we are working to unlock better data on that. Around 96% of discounts were matched last year, which meant that customers did not need to call the helpline. So, overall, it has been working pretty well. However, we are working with the provider because, clearly, we are going to see an increase in calls to the helpline, as the noble Earl rightly pointed out. We need to ensure that the capacity and resources will be sufficient; that is what we are working out with the provider. I hope that that gives the noble Earl reassurance in this area.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, also mentioned associated benefits—for health, for example. One thing I am really pleased about with the way this Government are working is that we are looking to work across departments, particularly on things such as health benefits from other areas. That is an important point.

Monthly updates are not practical at the moment because of the way we match data. However, if we can get better data sorted out and available, those may be possible.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell—or was it the noble Earl, Lord Effingham? I cannot remember—and the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, mentioned the park homes scheme. We have considered the responses to the recent consultation that we carried out on this matter. Although we recognise the need to support fuel-poor households that do not have a direct relationship with an energy provider, we have decided not to proceed with the expansion of the park homes WHD scheme at the current time because doing so would have meant taking budget away from other industry initiatives, which was strongly opposed in the consultation. The other way it would work would be to increase vastly the cost of the WHD scheme but, again, that would increase the impact of the scheme on other consumers.

I hope that I have covered most of the questions asked. As I have said, protecting and supporting those who need it most is a fundamental duty of public service and a principle that guides our approach to tackling fuel poverty. These regulations mark a significant step forward in our commitment to tackling fuel poverty by both expanding the warm home discount to cover more low-income households and ensuring that help is available when it is most needed.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her response. There were a few questions, which I believe her officials will have noted. I appreciate that UC and DWP are different, but the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee said that DESNZ assumes that 28% of people will not get this discount despite the other matter. I am sure that the Government will get the other Minister—the one from DESNZ—to reply, but I am grateful to this Minister for her responses so far.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I am sure that we can comb through Hansard and make sure that proper, detailed information is provided to the noble Baroness on the issues that she raised.

This scheme has been running for 14 years now. Over that time, more than £4 billion-worth of direct assistance has been provided to low-income and vulnerable households. These regulations will build on that legacy by allowing support to reach more people this winter, including vulnerable households that were previously shut out of the scheme.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

I have a point of clarification. The Minister responded to me most kindly about how the Government are going to invest in SMRs. I know that, if the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford—a former Secretary of State for Energy—were here, he would stand up and say, “I’m speaking to all the SMR providers. They’re saying to me that they are ready to go. They’re doing it with other countries, but they need more progress from the UK”. Can the Minister come back to us at some point with a bit more detail on when are we going to see some progress with the SMRs? What is holding us back? Can we action this urgently?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I am sure that the noble Earl and his colleagues are aware that we have made a very strong commitment to nuclear energy and are pushing forward on that in a way that previous Governments have not done. It is really important that we are investing in nuclear energy with that commitment. The department is working up exactly what that will look like; I am sure that, when the time is right, the noble Earl and his colleagues will hear more about SMRs.

Motion agreed.