A supporting briefing for Mission 1 — fix the energy market, not an active Battle. It doesn't have a finite, bounded victory condition, so it isn't represented as one — see Battles for what is.
Supporting Briefing
The human cost of energy-market failure
Energy-market design is not an abstract technical question. Affordability, reliability and access to essential energy services have direct consequences for health, wellbeing and household security.
This briefing brings together indicators of those consequences and asks whether the institutions responsible for protecting consumers are delivering against that responsibility.
Why this matters
Electricity and heat are essential services. When households cannot afford sufficient energy, the consequences extend beyond bills into health, safety and quality of life — which is precisely why energy markets are regulated rather than left entirely to unmanaged competition.
Ofgem’s responsibility
Under the Electricity Act 1989 (as amended by the Energy Act 2010, s.3A), Ofgem’s principal objective is to protect the interests of existing and future electricity consumers — with specific regard to individuals who are disabled or chronically sick, of pensionable age, on low incomes, or living in rural areas. (Electricity Act 1989, s.3A)
Ofgem has statutory responsibilities toward current and future consumers, including vulnerable consumers. The outcomes below therefore belong within any serious assessment of whether the regulatory system is working — not as a claim that any individual harm can be legally attributed to the regulator directly.
What the evidence shows
- • The End Fuel Poverty Coalition estimates close to 4,950 excess winter deaths in winter 2022/23 were associated with living in cold homes. (End Fuel Poverty Coalition) This is an association, not a claim that every death has a single, directly attributable cause.
- • National Energy Action estimated over 6.3 million UK households were in fuel poverty from October 2023. (NEA)
- • Poor housing conditions — including cold, damp and mould — were recorded as contributing factors in almost 40,000 NHS hospital admissions in 2024 for serious respiratory and cardiovascular illness. (reported NHS/government figures, 2024)
- • The government has estimated the annual cost to the NHS of treating illness directly related to cold, damp and mould in homes at approximately £860 million a year.
- • Households on prepayment meters are known to self-disconnect — going without power because they cannot afford to top up — at meaningful scale; estimates for the number of people affected each year vary significantly by source and methodology, and a single reliable current figure is not yet confirmed here.
Two figures from the previous version of this page — a specific "25% of deaths directly attributed to fuel poverty" claim, and a "£4.7bn major-supplier profit" claim — have been removed rather than kept or rewritten. Neither could be confidently sourced as stated: the profit figure traced back to National Grid, a network operator, not retail suppliers, and no current source for the 25% figure was found. If you have the original sourcing for either, they can be reinstated with a proper citation.
The system question
The question is not whether one institution can be blamed for every individual outcome. It is whether a system designed to protect consumers is producing outcomes consistent with that purpose — and, where it is not, what needs to change. A market and regulatory system should ultimately be judged by the outcomes it produces for the people who depend on it.