Provision of affordable heating for the less well off is going to be a difficult problem for the Government. I'm pretty sure we'll never see a return to the artificially depressed prices of the last 35 years or so as they were mainly driven by the abandonment of a national energy strategy following privatisation. As suppliers no longer had to provision for replacement generation units, they were able to drop prices and syphon off profits instead of investing in replacement.
On the other hand, the idea that we must all have warm homes all of the time is a pretty recent thing. It's not very long ago that winter clothing for a chap (eg my Grandfather) would be long joins, vest, flannel shirt, woollen waistcoat, thick corduroy trousers and a tweed jacket. These days I get the impression that people expect to be able to swan around their houses wearing t-Shirt and jogging bottoms when it's below zero outside.
