Member's statement: Home Heating Oil Costs
Member's statement by Mr David Honeyford on .
- MLA
- Mr David Honeyford
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 13 October 2026
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Home Heating Oil Costs
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5789420
Read the official Assembly record
Text
This morning, the UK Government announced better regulation of the home heating oil sector. I welcome that. It is vital in Northern Ireland — more so than anywhere else in the UK. A third of the 1·5 million households that depend on oil are based in Northern Ireland, yet we will end up with weaker protection because that regulation will not apply to us. Consumers have seen oil prices double. The Utility Regulator (Support for Decarbonisation Preparation) Bill is going through the Assembly. We cannot let that Bill pass without strengthening it to include home heating oil: not to do so would be a massive missed opportunity for the Department for the Economy and the House. I have been working on an amendment to the Bill. We are talking about decarbonisation, with which I totally agree and support. However, decarbonisation cannot be done without home heating oil being brought into it, given that 60% of our consumers use home heating oil as their heating source. Our people have seen the price of oil more than double today, but it has to be about more than today; the protections have got to be for the longer term. The Competition and Markets Authority has said clearly that our oil consumers do not have the protections that gas and electricity consumers do. We do not even have a system by which to identify the customers who are using home heating oil. How can we seriously talk about decarbonisation if we do not understand who is dependent on oil? We need better protections, today. We need better information and transparency and proper protection for vulnerable customers, and we need to help them move away from home heating oil and fossil fuels. The fact that two thirds of our consumers need to be protected needs to be addressed in the Utility Regulator Bill. To not do so would be a missed opportunity for the House. Our consumers need protection. Northern Ireland cannot be left behind.
330 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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