Today Burnham announced the return of the £2 bus fare cap, a much loved policy of previous Governments that was raised to £3 by Reeves two years ago. But who will benefit? [THREAD]

The Government has today announced that VAT on electricity bills will be cut from 5% to 0% from October, saving the typical household around £45 a year 1/

Do the dizzying array of big numbers in the new Defence Investment Plan stack up? Unfortunately this isn’t a simple question 🧵 www.gov.uk/government/p...

The Defence Investment Plan

Equipping our forces, defending our future.

gov.uk

It's undersold how important the ZEV mandate is for consumers, so big disappointment to see target for 2030 go down to 50% from 80% - a massive reduction. This will see British drivers paying more for their cars, both to run and to buy.

The new EHRC guidance is a joke. It defines the protected category of sex by biology and then relies on enforcement based on appearance. The GRC has effectively been nullified. It's involuntary disclosure carries criminal penalties but then requires Anyone having a GRC to constantly out themselves.

An unsung hero here is the ZEV mandate, which is pushing down on prices with discounts and big incentives for manufacturers to give EVs mass appeal. Shame we can't muster the same ambition for heat pump regs - MCS show HPs are still rising in price!

Ian Moody@ianmoody.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Average new UK electric car price is now lower than petrol vehicles. Autotrader says average EV cost is £785 cheaper, in an important milestone in the move away from fossil fuels. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

England's first Land Use Framework is finally here. It's been a long time coming and there's a lot to welcome. But when it comes do decarbonising land it leaves lots of the trickiest details - on how to not just inform land use decisions but shape them - to future work www.gov.uk/government/p...

Land Use Framework

How we can use our land more effectively to increase the resilience of our homes, communities, infrastructure, and food systems, while speeding up development and restoring nature.

gov.uk

New work from us - we shouldn't waste the time we've been given to prepare for winter and get a proper social tariff sorted

Jonny Marshall@jonnymarshall.bsky.social · 5mo ago

🚨New @resolutionfoundation.org note out today on how Government can be ready to protect households from the squeeze this winter 1/ www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

💡 New @resolutionfoundation.org note on energy bills out over the weekend 💡 2026 energy bills are on track to be more than £200 lower, in real terms, than in 2024 – overwhelmingly driven by the Government’s discount kicking in this April. www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

Power cut • Resolution Foundation

Next week, Ofgem is expected to announce that the Q2 2026 energy price cap will be nearly £120 below current levels. This reduction is overwhelmingly driven by the Government’s energy bill discount, w...

resolutionfoundation.org

🧵 New research on decarbonising UK farms and what it means for living standards. The good news is decarbonisation should be manageable and won't cost the world - but it'll still be hard, as farming's in a fragile situation. Here's what we found 👇 www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

Green your eats • Resolution Foundation

This report provides an assessment of the UK’s progress toward net zero in the land use and agriculture sector – the only major area where emissions have barely fallen over the past 15 years. It exami...

resolutionfoundation.org

Excited to be finally launching our new report on agricultural decarbonisation tomorrow morning - 9:30 online or in person for anyone who wants to join! 🐑🚜🐮 www.resolutionfoundation.org/events/net-z...

Net zero farming • Resolution Foundation

The UK has made good progress towards net zero in recent decades. But the agriculture sector stands out as having made barely any progress. To meet our legally-binding climate targets, agriculture and...

resolutionfoundation.org

This is all a bit opaque but certainly seems like BUS and ECO are at risk. In a world where ECO levy is no more and £13.2bn is all we have for warm homes, stricter means testing is good & keeps tight focus on fuel poor homes But that only works if there's heat pump regs to keep demand on track

Andrew Sissons@acjsissons.bsky.social · 9mo ago

I think part of this story (on eligibility for heat pump grants) is likely to be nonsense - I'll explain in a thread below. But it is clear that the Treasury wants to abolish the ECO levy, which funds upgrades for fuel poor homes. This would be a serious mistake www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

While esteemed colleagues won prestigious awards for great work last, I'm also proud to have won 2.5kg of smarties for best report title of the year, the best return on writing two words I'm ever likely to get www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

Adam Corlett@adamcorlett.bsky.social · 9mo ago

I'm proud to have received the innovation prize at last night's @smartthinking.bsky.social awards – for my and my colleagues' work producing an alternative to Labour Force Survey stats www.resolutionfoundation.org/our-work/est...

The Government released it's Carbon Budget Delivery Plan this afternoon, the first chance this Government has had to set out how it wants to reach net zero. For the first time, it adds up. But the decisions the Government is making on how to make it add up are far more important

💡💡💡 New @resfoundation.bsky.social note out today on cutting energy bills – and how paying for some costs on bills differently will see the poorest households more than £100 per year better off 💡💡💡 1/ www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

Splitting the bill • Resolution Foundation

This note looks at the factors behind stubbornly high energy bills and how ministers could act to ease pressure on households. It considers how change can be enacted to work for vulnerable families an...

resolutionfoundation.org

Salary sacrifice is a poor way of subsidising. More cash for those with higher tax rates (meaning more income) is the opposite of what we should be doing - getting solar panels onto the rooves of fuel poor families. Poorer families have less salary to sacrifice, meaning less or no subsidy for them

Will Hazell@whazell.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Exclusive @theipaper.com: Ministers are looking at introducing salary sacrifice schemes for rooftop solar panels as part of efforts to cut energy bills inews.co.uk/news/politic...

This is good from Simon Wren-Lewis on why the country's fiscal woes are not caused by OBR forecasts, the bond market or (most improbably) the frequency of fiscal forecasts.

Simon Wren-Lewis@sjwrenlewis.bsky.social · 10mo ago

This weeks post: Misunderstandings on the left (and elsewhere) about the OBR, independence and the bond market mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/09/misu... The government delegating some technical tasks to independent experts doesn't create a democratic deficit, but it does avoid wishful thinking.

Most of this change in energy bills being driven by an increase in standing charges, which are up for both gas and for electricity into Q4

Ofgem@ofgem.gov.uk · 11mo ago

The quarterly energy price cap will rise by 2% from 1 October 2025. This will be a rise of around £2.93 per month for the average household. This is a cap on energy unit price plus standing charge, not a cap on total bills. More ⬇️ www.ofgem.gov.uk/new...

Ready for your next step? We're hiring! 📣 If you have strong quantitative research skills and a commitment to raising living standards in the UK, you might be the right fit for our team. Find out more about becoming an Economist or Research & Policy Analyst ⤵️ buff.ly/7MNZRR4

Great to see Guardian cover our research today - it's flats and smaller houses that are most at risk of overheating, so should be no surprise that vulnerable families will be more at risk. Important to think about cooling homes as well as warming them!

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 12mo ago

Low-income and minority ethnic people in England most at risk from dangerously hot homes

New research from us today on how Gov should approach some tricky trade offs in its Warm Homes Plan

Jonny Marshall@jonnymarshall.bsky.social · 12mo ago

⚡⚡ New @resfoundation.bsky.social note out today looking at how the Government should prioritise its £13 billion Warm Homes Plan budget ⚡⚡ www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

New data further proof that the ZEV mandate is doing its job - SMMT reckons we'll hit 23.8% BEV this year - 4 points up on 2024 and more than enough to meet the ZEV mandate's 28% target with all its flexibilities.

Simon Evans@drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · last yr.

NEW DATA: UK car market continues shift to electric EV +9.1% PHEV +33.0% Petrol -14.7% Diesel -7.9% Hybrid -10.0% Data from SMMT

Good to see the flexibility roadmap out today. Flex is key to a cheaper energy system, so great that Gov is committed to this. Especially big savings coming for those with big techs like EVs and heat pumps. www.gov.uk/government/p...

Clean flexibility roadmap

A roadmap setting out the government’s vision for a clean, flexible, consumer-focused electricity system.

gov.uk

Shame to see rising block tariffs suggested. A bad idea for poorer families that use lots of energy, but also not great for incentivising people to consume more electricity in electric cars or heat pumps

Jessica Elgot@jessicaelgot.bsky.social · last yr.

Ed Miliband has been urged by more than 100 Labour MPs to explore overhauling UK energy bills. He is understood to be considering a number of options for progressive energy pricing, inc discounts for the least intensive consumers – known as rising block tariffs www.theguardian.com/environment/...

It's a shame that zonal pricing won't happen (but about time we make the decision!). The good news is that when it comes to electricity price signals, zonal isn't where the biggest gains are

Changing how we generate electricity means we also have to change how we use it. That means pricing electricity when and where it's expensive, to make our system more efficient and bring bills down - worth £200 a household. But there are risks to manage. [thread] tinyurl.com/y7z2u269

Flex appeal • Resolution Foundation

Britain needs to transform its electricity system for net zero, shifting from fixed prices to time-and-location varying tariffs. This could save £18bn annually by 2040, but it requires careful design ...

resolutionfoundation.org

Salary sacrifice for heat pumps (shorturl.at/0D5lf) not the way forward - we should be making heat pumps cheaper for poorest not the richest As we showed for the EV scheme, salary sacrifice locks most low-income households out of meaningful subsidy and chucks huge sums to the highest earners

Great to see that solar on new homes may happen - here's more from us earlier this year on how we can make the best of the 'rooftop revolution' www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Zachary Leather@zackleather.resolutionfoundation.org · last yr.

Today @resfoundation.bsky.social published new work on solar panels, and how the Government can make the best of its 'rooftop revolution' [THREAD] www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

🚨 🚨 🚨 New @resfoundation.bsky.social research out today on decarbonising home heating, looking at what shape policy should take so that poorer households can be more involved 🧵 www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

Turning up the heat • Resolution Foundation

Decarbonising home heating is one of the knottiest parts of the net zero transition, with big implications on families’ finances and behaviour. This report examines progress so far and discusses what ...

resolutionfoundation.org

New @resfoundation.bsky.social research out this morning from @emilyfry.bsky.social, @camronaref.bsky.social and I which uses the first ever comprehensive analysis of public service use across the income distribution to show how we can make public services better for low-to-middle income families.