Verdicts · Energy
What the UK thinks about energy
Settled referendums
27
since Jun 2026
Votes cast
2,855
all time, on energy
This week
0
votes · 0 referendums settled
Written opinions
116
all time, left by voters
Last week's opinion highlightThe most respected opinion last week
“The increase is driven by volatile global wholesale gas markets and geopolitical conflict. Accelerating clean energy is the only sustainable way to break our exposure to international fossil fuel markets.”
BenL, debating No on “Are net zero policies the main cause for the recent energy price cap?” · read the thread →
5
Respects
Most respected on energy last week
- 1.JohnnyBoy7 respects
- 2.BenL7 respects
- 3.Jonathan6 respects
- 4.Astobie15 respects
- 5.constancia4 respects
Who answered last week
The 533 placed voters lean Centre Right overall.
H. Left6%
Left22%
C. Left7%
Centre5%
C. Right10%
Right40%
H. Right9%
Regions last week
LondonC. Right
ScotlandCentre
South WestRight
South EastCentre
East of EnglandCentre
North WestC. Right
YorkshireC. Right
North EastRight
West MidlandsCentre
East MidlandsC. Left
Northern IrelandRight
Votes each week
0so far this week
27927 Jul
1343 Aug
10 Aug
28117 Aug
81224 Aug
31 Aug
All-time energy highlights
Biggest landslide
YES 98%
Should the UK adopt a national strategy to cut business energy costs and boost growth?
98% of 50 votes went the same way.
Closest result
YES 50%
Should fracking be allowed?
Decided by 1 vote.
Most debated
NO 51%
Are net zero policies the main cause for the recent energy price cap?
23 written opinions.
Last week
2 settled · 812 votes
0% NO
Majority against
YES 49%
433 votes
0 skipped
by @refnation⏱ Ended 28 Aug 2026
Are net zero policies the main cause for the recent energy price cap?
The verdict
No scraped through a near-dead heat, while the floor’s best-supported case said the real culprit was “volatile global wholesale gas markets and geopolitical conflict”.
0% YES
Majority for
NO 49%
379 votes
0 skipped
by @CDRook⏱ Ended 26 Aug 2026
Should the UK invest more in renewable energy sources over natural gas?
The verdict
“Renewables are not renewable” captured the chamber’s distrust of the premise even as Yes won by two points.
Every energy verdict
- NO 51%Are net zero policies the main cause for the recent energy price cap?No scraped through a near-dead heat, while the floor’s best-supported case said the real culprit was “volatile global wholesale gas markets and geopolitical conflict”.
- YES 51%Should the UK invest more in renewable energy sources over natural gas?“Renewables are not renewable” captured the chamber’s distrust of the premise even as Yes won by two points.
- YES 66%Should local Oil and gas be exploited to ease the burden of the ludicrous green agenda?Domestic oil and gas won a two-to-one verdict, but the floor’s most respected voices were No: they pointed to nuclear, wasted wind and a question they called biased.
- YES 73%Should older clean energy projects be moved to fixed-price contracts?A near three-to-one verdict for decoupling old renewables from gas prices shows the chamber has largely made its peace with severing the link between wholesale gas and household bills, even as a smaller camp warned against tampering with market pricing altogether.
- YES 72%Should the UK open up the North Sea for oil drilling?A near three-to-one vote for drilling arrived on the back of an argument almost nobody bothered to dispute: that importing energy while sitting on domestic reserves is self-defeating, both for the tax take and, in the winning side's telling, for emissions too.
- YES 56%Should households near new electricity transmission infrastructure receive up to £250 annual bill discounts for 10 years?A narrow 56% majority backed compensating households living beside new pylons and substations, endorsing the principle of paying communities to host the grid upgrades net zero requires, though the margin was thin enough to suggest no great enthusiasm either way.
- YES 72%Should the UK approve the Rosebank and Jackdaw North Sea drilling projects?The chamber backed new North Sea licences by a wide margin, folding Rosebank and Jackdaw into the cost-of-living argument Andy Burnham has floated — but only after the youngest voters present staged the one visible revolt, near-unanimously against.
- YES 50%Should fracking be allowed?A single vote separated the two sides, and beneath that near-perfect tie sits a chamber cracked clean along generational and gender lines: fracking's fate here came down to a coin toss, with yes edging it by one vote of 111 cast.
- YES 92%Should the UK change its electricity market so the wholesale price is no longer set by the most expensive gas generator?Consensus is rare on energy policy, but here it was near-total: reforming the marginal-pricing rule that lets gas set the cost of every unit on the grid carried by roughly ten to one, with barely a murmur of dissent across age or gender.
- YES 84%Should nuclear power be expanded?Nuclear expansion found something the UK's energy debate rarely produces, near-unanimity, with voters here backing an expanded rollout of reactors and SMRs by better than four to one.
- YES 81%Should the government reform gas standing charges and remove policy levies from bills to cut energy costs by £130 a year?On a question of who pays for the energy transition, the chamber's answer was emphatic: shift the cost off bills and onto the taxpayer, with four in five voters backing a £130 giveaway that quietly makes heat pumps cheaper to run than gas boilers.
- YES 75%Should the UK government issue new North Sea oil and gas licences?A chamber that broke decisively for new drilling suggests Labour's incoming energy pivot away from its own manifesto may find less resistance among voters here than in Westminster, with three in four backing new North Sea licences.
- YES 58%Should the government create policy conditions to help households cut energy bills using heat pumps, solar panels, batteries and time-of-use tariffs?Younger voters embraced the low-carbon retrofit almost on instinct, while a solid Yes nationally masked a striking gender gulf, with men roughly two to one in favour and women turning against it three to one.
- YES 98%Should the UK adopt a national strategy to cut business energy costs and boost growth?Britain-on-the-platform is not exactly split on this one: a near-unanimous chamber backed a national strategy to cut business energy costs, with just one dissenting vote out of fifty across every age group and gender.
- YES 77%Should the government move green levies off business electricity bills to cut costs?Voters here were happy to let someone else pick up the tab for cheaper business power, with only the 45-54s bucking a lopsided verdict that green levies should come off electricity bills.
- YES 78%Should the government reform energy policy to cut business costs?Business-cost arguments rarely unite a chamber this thoroughly, but reforming energy policy did, with four in five voters backing change and only the over-65s showing real hesitation.
- YES 73%Should the UK overhaul its energy system to change how families are charged for gas and electricity?Rarely does Westminster manage to unite the 16-24s and the 65+s, but bills did it: nearly three in four voters here backed tearing up the way energy is charged, a rare cross-generational consensus in a country otherwise split on almost everything else.
- YES 78%Should the UK extend the operating life of Sizewell B nuclear plant until 2055?Nuclear power's usual generational battle lines barely held here: this chamber backed keeping Sizewell B running to 2055 by roughly three to one, with only the youngest voters holding out against it.
- YES 57%Should councils spend public money on community-owned energy projects?A modest win for community energy on the scoreboard masks a striking gender split: men backed council-funded schemes better than two to one, while women leaned against, 9 to 5.
- YES 71%Should the UK shift more homes and industry from gas to electricity to cut bills?The chamber backed electrifying Britain's homes and industry two to one, but conviction thinned sharply with age: the young were near-unanimous, the over-55s the only group to actually resist.
Show all 27 verdicts ↓
- YES 53%Should the UK adopt a whole-systems approach to plug its electricity gap?Yes squeaked through nationally, but the chamber split hard by gender — men backed the whole-systems approach by more than two to one, women rejected it by nearly the same margin.
- YES 83%Should the UK government reduce industrial electricity prices?Voters here backed cutting industrial electricity prices by 39 to 8, an 83% landslide, with support hardening rather than softening as the age brackets rise — every over-55 voter said yes.
- NO 60%Should the UK government take difficult decisions to speed up renewable energy projects and hit zero-carbon electricity by 2030?No won this one, but not by a rout: of 43 votes cast, 26 sided against forcing through the 2030 zero-carbon target, a 20-point margin that masks a genuine age split.
- YES 60%Should the government subsidise household solar panel installations?Yes to solar subsidies carried 60-40 among the 48 who voted, but the split by gender was starker than the topline: men backed subsidy 65-35 while women split dead even, 5-5.
- YES 54%Should the UK expand North Sea oil drilling or prioritise renewables?Expanding North Sea drilling edged it, 13 to 11, but the only group large enough to trust told the opposite story: 25-34 year-olds voted 9 to 4 against, the single biggest bloc in the chamber.
- YES 65%Should the government take greater public control of Thames Water?Yes to public control of Thames Water carried 15-8, but the chamber split hard by gender: men backed it 77% to 33% among women, on a small vote of 23.
- YES 54%Should the UK government accelerate electrification to meet its climate targets?Yes squeaked home, 21 to 18, but the topline hides a real split: under-35s drove the win while the 35-54 bracket voted it down, and men backed acceleration far more readily than women.