Is the government doing enough to help people with the cost of living?
The Ofgem energy price cap for a typical household is £1,723 a year from 1 October 2026, a 4% rise, partly offset by VAT being removed from domestic electricity. UK CPI inflation was 3.1% in August 2026, up from 2.9% in July, and the Bank of England expects it to peak at around 3.2% in late 2026. Chancellor John Healey said in October 2026 that Budget support will be "targeted and temporary", amid forecasts that energy bills could rise by up to 20% in January.
5 Opinions
Internally, yes. We are poor though. Gotta make money without selling the family silver. Who's got ideas(?)
Yes. The only thing HMG can do to help with the cost of living is to get government out of the way: a smaller state; less regulation; and lower taxes will make everyone better off.
No. They're taxing all the wrong things in all the wrong ways and taking too much. We're all skint.
Taking VAT off electricity is a nice little headline, but it's completely useless when the energy market is still fundamentally broken. Hearing the Chancellor talk about "targeted and temporary" help just tells me they're planning to leave most working people out in the cold this winter to satisfy arbitrary fiscal rules. You can't fix a massive cost-of-living squeeze by just tinkering at the edges when bills are forecast to jump another 20% in January.
I think they're actually making it worse by their complete inaction which is giving the likes of petrol energy and supermarkets a green light to continue finding ALL of us. This government has done nothing to make a meaningful impact on any of it. And it's going to cost them at the next GE