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Cost of Living

Tracker data: The public blames government and the energy system (not green initiatives) for high bills

18 May 2024

The public feels that the UK government’s role in high energy bills comes from roughly two areas: one is a failure reform energy market, not transitioning to renewable energy faster, allowing the UK to become too dependent on gas; the second is in privatising energy companies and only looking after the interests of big energy companies. Overall it appears that people understand that the energy system is not working and green initiatives are far from people’s minds on this issue.

The latest from the Cost of Living timeline:

Opinion Insight 5th February 2026

Varied levels of support for individual net zero policies

Our tracker shows the enduring popularity of policies that also save on household bills (like installing insulation, or incentives to do so).

Although Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) get a bad rep, our tracker shows support outweighing opposition and support gently rising over the past three years.

One way to look at levels of policy support across the piece is that they’re really quite stable – but some are not stable in a good way. When it comes to sales of new gas boilers, and the phase out of sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles, opposition started to outpace support around 18 months ago, and this trend has (slowly) continued. 

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