Budget 2026: standing charges on gas bills to be abolished
Budget 2026: standing charges on gas bills to be abolished
Written By
Published on
28 October 2026
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Chancellor John Healey announces that standing charges on gas will be scrapped in today’s Budget
The average household will save £45
Low gas users will be the ones to benefit
Chancellor John Healey will deliver today's Budget. Credit: UKinUSA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Standing charges in gas bills will be abolished after the Budget, according to Chancellor John Healey.
In a big pre-Budget announcement, Healey described standing charges as “unfair and outdated” and said that scrapping them will give “millions of households breathing space”.
It’s the first announcement in what could be a big day for consumers and billpayers. Healey is under pressure to help households in his first Budget since taking over the Treasury in a year that has seen wholesale gas costs balloon due to Donald Trump’s war with Iran.
The scrapping of standing charges on gas bills will save the average household £45, according to the government. It follows the decision taken by PM Andy Burnham earlier in the year to cut VAT from electricity bills.
What are standing charges?
Standing charges are fees added to energy bills to pay for the maintenance of the National Grid. They are a flat charge that apply to every household regardless of how much is used.
This has often led to criticism because sanding charges cost low users an unfair amount. The costs will now be shifted to the unit of gas used, making the amount each household pays more representative of their energy use.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said: “Abolishing gas standing charges is about basic fairness and giving people more control over their bills.
“I am determined to reform our broken energy market, so it better serves the public interest.”
Written By
Maximilian SchwerdtfegerDeputy editor
Max joined The Eco Experts as content manager in February 2024 and became deputy editor in 2025. He has written about sustainability issues across numerous industries, including maritime, supply chain, finance, mining, and retail. He has also written extensively for consumer titles like City AM, The Morning Star, and The Daily Express.
He has represented The Eco Experts on national television several times, including the BBC’s Sunday Morning Live and ITV Tonight .
In 2020, he covered in detail the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) legislation on sulphur emissions and its effects on the global container shipping market as online editor of Port Technology International.
He also explored the initiatives major container ports and terminals have launched in order to ship vital goods across the world without polluting the environment.
Since then, he has reported heavily on the impact made by environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices on the supply chain of minerals, with a particular focus on rare earth mining in Africa.
As part of this, in 2022 Max visited mines and ports in Angola to hone in on the challenges being faced by one of the world’s biggest producers of rare earth minerals.
His most recent sustainability-related work came much closer to home, as he investigated the eco-challenges faced by independent retailers in the UK, specifically looking at how they can cut emissions and continue to thrive.
Max lives in South London and is an avid reader of books on modern history. He has also recently learned to play the game Mahjong and takes every opportunity to do so. He is also yet to find a sport he doesn’t enjoy watching.
