In an expansion to her Warm Homes Plan in her Spending Review, she pledged to get bills down for winters to come, aiming to help thousands of households cut their energy bills and improve energy efficiency.
She also announced that more than 75% of pensioners in England and Wales will now be entitled to the winter fuel and pensioners with an income of £35,000 or less will receive the payment automatically this winter, with no need to complete extra paperwork.
The upgrade will now include £7million to homes in Bradford, £11 million to homes in Rugby and £30million to homes in Blackpool.
The Warm Homes Plan, part of a wider £13.2 billion investment in energy efficiency, is designed to fund retrofits for millions of homes across the UK, particularly targeting those in lower income brackets and energy-inefficient housing.
The scheme includes support for better insulation, solar panel installation, and the rollout of heat pumps, measures that not only cut household costs but also support the UK’s climate commitments.
She also announced a £1.2billion skills and training funding increase to help people ‘thrive in the industries of the future’. She listed careers including scientists, engineers, designers as well as builders, welders and electricians.
Other highlights included a £2.6bn commitment over phase two of the government clean energy plans to decarbonise transport.
This includes £1.4bn to support continued uptake of electric vehicles, including vans and heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) - and £400m for the further rollout of charging infrastructure.
It will also be extending the Advanced Fuels Fund to 2029-30 to support the production of sustainable aviation fuel, and there is £616m to build and maintain walking and cycling infrastructure.
There is, in addition, due to be a multi-billion-pound investment into nuclear including Sizewell C power station in Suffolk.
Some £330m in contracts have been signed with local companies and will boost supply chains across the UK with 70% of contracts predicted to go to 3,500 British suppliers. The equivalent of around six million of today’s homes will be powered with clean homegrown energy from Sizewell C.