Heating Oil Prices: Rural Areas

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone)—my dear friend—for securing this important debate. In North East Fife, about 14.6% of households are off the gas grid. It is not as remote as my hon. Friend’s, but it is a rural constituency.

I want to share the experience of one of my constituents that illustrates the reality facing many households today. My constituent uses an electric heater in her daughter’s bedroom rather than turning on the boiler in order to preserve her remaining oil supply for hot water. Her energy costs mean that she has less money to spend on her overall costs, and she is now building up a credit card debt that she is trying to service. She told me:

“I can’t take my daughter to visit her grandparents because I have to ration fuel for school runs and food shopping. I make excuses because I’m too embarrassed to admit I can’t afford the 80-mile round trip.”

No family should be forced to make choices like those.

I have met with Ministers to discuss the impact not only of heating oil prices but of the rising costs of liquefied petroleum gas and red diesel. That is creating additional pressures for rural households, farmers and local businesses. I agree with other Members that while immediate support is essential, we need to focus on long-term solutions. The answer to helping people to cope with high-energy costs cannot simply be to mitigate those costs; we need to do things permanently.

That is one of the reasons why my Scottish Lib Dem colleagues in Holyrood, and indeed colleagues in Westminster, continue to advocate for an emergency home upgrade programme. I have to say, however, that constituents’ experiences with schemes such as energy company obligation 4 are really damaging and have eroded consumer confidence in making the move to more zero carbon, zero emission and better heating.

Older homes need to be heated to be maintained. It is a real challenge for people. We need to reduce that reliance in the longer term because, as we have heard, families across North East Fife and other rural constituencies absolutely deserve better.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ms Polly Billington)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank everybody who has spoken in the debate, and indeed their correspondents and constituents, for raising the issue of heating oil and the powerful ways in which they have conveyed it here in this Chamber.

It will be of little comfort to those people that the situations that I hear about in my own correspondence regarding heating oil keep me awake at night. The reality is that, for far too many families in this country, our exposure to the global energy crisis is felt most strongly by people who simply thought that this was the way they would be able to heat their homes for good. That change is a profound and difficult transition for them, which we as a Government have a responsibility to support them through.

Others have mentioned those 1.5 million homes and talked about the thousands of people affected in their own constituencies, and we recognise those particular challenges. It is worth while, however, thinking about how we are addressing that in the context of the wider global energy crisis and the efforts that we have already made.

This is an extremely difficult international backdrop. Some Members have mentioned how hopeful they are because of the midterm results overnight, but I tell this Chamber that, even if there were to be a full and complete ceasefire in Iran now, we would not see a return to the comparatively low prices we had before. Half of the recessions since 1973 have been caused by fossil fuel shocks. I have enormous respect for the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), but if we are to protect these families in the future, we need to get off the fossil fuel rollercoaster, not simply talk about drilling more—anywhere at all, frankly. Oil and gas will continue to be part of our energy mix for some time to come, but continuing to allow these families to be exposed to the fossil fuel rollercoaster would be a dereliction of duty.

That is why it is so important that we have committed to the boiler upgrade scheme, for example. I slightly correct my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law), as the scheme actually provides £9,000 for off-grid homes. The last quarter saw a 120% increase from this time last year in the number of people applying. That indicates that people can see that, if they want to reduce their exposure to the appalling consequences of this fossil fuel crisis, the best thing to do is to take advantage of the scheme and adopt cleaner heat technology.

I reassure those colleagues who mentioned that the housing stock in their communities is possibly not suitable. The Department has done a significant amount of work on this, and it suggests that more than 90% of households will be suitable for heat pumps. That will include many of the households that are currently exposed. This is not, in any way, shape or form, enough on its own. We have an emergency, bearing in mind that it is early November.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I mentioned the ECO4 scheme. I accept the Minister’s statistics on suitability for heat pumps, but one of the key challenges is that we have few fully qualified tradespeople capable of carrying out this work. That is why my constituents have been left with completely substandard work when they have tried to implement changes.

[Ms Billington]

I am sure the hon. Lady will agree that it would be helpful if the Scottish Government understood the importance of devolving the responsibilities for this kind of thing to local government in Scotland, and ensuring that local government has the skills, powers and potential to deliver the jobs and skills that will be required. That is part of our commitment under the warm homes plan. I would like to see that fully implemented in co-operation—I believe in problem solving, not point scoring—with our partners north of the border.

It is important to think about this in the context of the other things we have done. The £100 household energy payment will be made to everyone with a house in council tax bands A to D from January, and 19% of those homes—that is 3.9 million—are in rural areas. The idea that this will not reach those people is not true. Remember that the temporary zero VAT rate on domestic electricity will extend to 98% of people who use heating oil, because they are also on the electricity grid. That will benefit them.