The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero opened a consultation at 1pm on 8 December 2025 on whether the cost of the Warm Home Discount should be recovered from the unit rate rather than the standing charge1. The consultation closes at 11:59pm on 6 January 2026 and applies to England, Scotland and Wales1.
Under the current arrangement, the costs of the scheme, given as £39 on the typical dual fuel bill, are recovered by suppliers through the standing charge, described in the consultation as a fixed daily fee applied to all customers regardless of energy usage1. The proposal would instead recover those costs through the unit rate, the per-kWh charge for electricity and gas usage, for both consumers and suppliers1. The consultation document runs to 21 pages1.
The government response, published on 12 February 2026, confirms that energy suppliers should recover Warm Home Discount costs from the unit rate for electricity and gas from 1 April 20261. It states that the supplier reconciliation process will be updated so that supplier obligations are settled against actual energy volumes supplied, and that an industry wide feedback loop will be introduced so that any aggregate under or over recovery, owing to differences between forecast and actual demand in one scheme year, is corrected in the following year1. The response document runs to 19 pages1.
The department received 778 responses to the consultation from individuals, energy suppliers, consumer groups, charities and industry bodies1. The page was updated on 2 April 2026 to correct tables in the government response document because the figures were incorrect1. The corrected figures have not been reported.
"It confirms that energy suppliers should recover Warm Home Discount costs from the unit rate for electricity and gas from 1 April 2026."
Why it matters for households
The standing charge is paid at the same daily rate whatever a household uses, so recovering the discount through it spreads the cost evenly across all customers. Moving recovery to the unit rate ties each household's contribution to the energy it actually consumes, which shifts cost between low-use and high-use homes. The consultation sought views on the impacts of that shift for both consumers and suppliers1. For a household's energy independence, the change affects the fixed part of the bill rather than the total cost of the scheme, which the consultation gives as £39 on a typical dual fuel bill1. The reconciliation change means supplier obligations are settled against actual volumes supplied, with any aggregate under or over recovery corrected in the following scheme year1. The consultation process ran for just under a month, and the government response followed on 12 February 20261.
What happens next
The government response confirms recovery from the unit rate for electricity and gas from 1 April 20261. The page was last updated on 2 April 2026, when tables in the response document were corrected because the figures were incorrect1.