The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero published a consultation in November 2025 seeking views on Great Britain's long-term gas supply and setting out proposed policy actions1. The department's annual report for 2025 to 2026 records the publication without giving the closing date, the number of proposals or the length of the consultation period1.
The consultation sits within a wider programme of work the department describes as enhancing energy security and protecting billpayers, two of its four strategic outcomes for the year1. The report states that a security strategy for the energy sector will be published in 20261. It also records that a contract was signed in April 2025 for a replacement for the Reserve Tanker Fleet, a measure the department links to supply resilience1.
On costs to households, the report says officials delivered measures to take an average £150 of policy costs off household bills from April 2026, and that the recovery of Warm Home Discount costs will shift from the standing charge to the unit rate from the same month1. The Warm Home Discount has been expanded to a total of around 6 million families1. The report also states that the £15bn Warm Homes Plan was launched in January 2026, with £13.2bn allocated to it, and that homes will benefit from solar panels, batteries, heat pumps and insulation1. A Fuel Poverty Strategy was published in January 20261.
The department's own summary of the year puts the gas question in the context of price shocks:
"the overriding lesson of recent months is that Britain needs to go further and faster to get off the rollercoaster of international fossil fuel markets"
The report also records that the department secured a capital settlement of £62.8bn from 2025-26 to 2029-30, including £8.3bn for Great British Energy and Great British Energy, Nuclear1. It states that over £90bn of private investment in clean energy was announced between July 2024 and March 2026, and that more than a million jobs are now supported by the UK's net zero economy, citing CBI Economics1. The report was updated on 19 August 2026 and carries a correction dated 24 July 2026 relating to table dates on page 801.
Why it matters for households
Gas supply arrangements shape what households pay and how reliably heat and power arrive. Most UK homes burn gas for heating and hot water, and gas-fired plants set the price of electricity much of the time, so decisions about long-term supply, storage and reserve capacity feed through to bills and to the risk of disruption in cold spells. A consultation is a stage at which policy is proposed rather than settled, so nothing in it changes a household's supply or tariff on its own. What the report does confirm is movement on the cost side: an average £150 of policy costs removed from bills from April 2026, and the Warm Home Discount's costs moved from the standing charge to the unit rate, which changes how the fixed and per-unit parts of a bill are built. For a home weighing its own energy security and independence, the relevant question is how much of its heating and power it can source or store on site, since gas supply is a national matter that no household controls directly. The Warm Homes Plan measures named in the report, insulation, solar, batteries and heat pumps, are the levers that reduce a home's exposure to gas prices.
What happens next
The report states that a security strategy for the energy sector will be published in 20261. No date has been reported for the outcome of the November 2025 gas supply consultation, and the report does not say when responses will be published or when decisions will follow1. The £150 average reduction in policy costs and the change to Warm Home Discount cost recovery both take effect from April 20261.