Heating Oil Prices: Rural Areas

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for securing the debate.

In the brief two minutes I have, I will speak about the situation in Northern Ireland. I remind the House of a stark, unyielding reality: for the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland, the energy price cap is a complete myth. The official statistics tell a story of systematic vulnerability: 5% of households in Great Britain rely on domestic oil heating, but 63% of households in Northern Ireland depend entirely on oil central heating. In the rural community of Strangford, where I live, dependency skyrockets to an astonishing 82%. I doubt that there is anywhere else in the United Kingdom where the figure is 82%. In Strangford and the Ards peninsula, people cannot flick a switch and rely on a regulated utility grid; instead, they are forced to watch the price of a drop of kerosene like a hawk. When the price of crude spikes, off-grid families face an immediate, brutal financial penalty. In a matter of just three weeks, we watched the average cost of 500 litres of home heating oil almost double.

What does that mean for a working family, small farmer or pensioner in Strangford? They are looking at an up-front lump-sum demand of more than £1,000 just to keep the radiators warm. If they cannot find the cash, they are left with an empty tank and a freezing home.

[Mr Snowden]

There is a perception that a lot of the households on oil are rich or in large houses, but in rural communities a lot of the houses that depend on oil are actually smaller properties, where there is rural poverty and isolation.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman is right. The Minister will be listening to the facts.

In Northern Ireland, fuel poverty stands at 22%—nearly a quarter of the population. Our people are being disproportionately punished simply because of where they live. We need an urgent, comprehensive strategy that bridges the gap between off-grid rural communities and the rest of the United Kingdom. I implore the Minister and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to work urgently with the Northern Ireland Executive to deliver sustained structural protections. We must ensure that a child growing up in rural Strangford is afforded the same basic right to a warm home as a child living in metropolitan London.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Billington]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to clarify that 19% of the people who will qualify are in rural communities and off grid. I am pleased that they will benefit.

Remember also that everybody who is on the electricity grid will benefit from the reduced policy costs on bills, which is worth £150. We have also extended the warm home discount, a £150 rebate for people on means-tested benefits, to 6 million households. These are not inconsequential efforts in taking some of the pressure off people and creating the breathing space that is required.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the Minister for her comprehensive and confident approach to the questions. She is right that this is about solutions—life is about solutions. I mentioned that 82% of my rural community need oil to survive, so they are greatly impacted by this. The Minister and the Government have given some help, but when such a large proportion of my constituency, and 65% of households across Northern Ireland, entirely depend on heating oil, do they have any other ideas for how help and alleviation can be given to those who entirely depend on heating oil?

[Ms Billington]

We have allocated £17 million to Northern Ireland for precisely the reason that so many people there depend on heating oil. It is also important to make sure that the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive take up the opportunity to shift and accelerate people away from dependence on heating oil by using schemes similar to the boiler upgrade scheme that we have in England and Wales.

A lot of Members talked about the Competition and Markets Authority recommendations, and how we are accepting the recommendation to regulate. This is a long time coming. I remind the hon. Member for Bridgwater that we had an oil crisis when his party was in charge, and there was neither a decision to call in the CMA nor a decision to regulate. In fact, people who have been involved in energy campaigning and strategy for a long time are saying, “Thank goodness! This has been decades in the making.” The fact we have not had regulation in this space has caused significant problems for decades.

Through the Energy Independence Bill, which has been published today, we will be able to bring forward a new general authorisation regime to take the powers needed to bring heating oil within a proportionate regulatory framework and to strengthen protections for consumers, particularly vulnerable households. It will take time to get that regulation right, and I am sure that hon. Friends and colleagues will be aware that there are large risks in regulating at speed unless we are absolutely clear that we have ironed out all the potential risks. For this winter, we need to ensure that there is voluntary co-operation with the UK and Ireland Fuel Distributors Association and the Northern Ireland Oil Federation to ensure that providers sign up to voluntary codes of conduct and behave properly this winter.

Remember, it was the Competition and Markets Authority that enforced and secured compensation for consumers who ended up either having their orders cancelled or being charged excessively at the beginning of this conflict. That is the kind of regulation we need to see in future, and I am keen that we will be able to do that, including on minimum order volumes, which Members have talked about, and payment schemes. It is unconscionable that, for electricity, one can have a fixed tariff, a direct debit or a prepayment meter, if they are really struggling, yet people on heating oil cannot manage things in the same way.

I am extraordinarily grateful to everybody who has contributed to debate today. I am conscious of time, and I want the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) to be able to sum up, but I assure people that the concerns of rural communities around heating oil, exposure to the fossil fuel rollercoaster and the global energy crisis are absolutely at the forefront of my mind as the Energy Minister for consumers. It is absolutely essential that we establish an energy market that works for people. Notwithstanding the particular things that are helping at the moment, in the long term we will reform the energy retail market not only for those on heating oil but for everyone, so that we can benefit from the clean energy we are generating ourselves and give ourselves resilience and security that we have not previously had because of our exposure to fossil fuel shocks.