Summer is now drawing to a close (I know, it feels like it barely even began) and before we know it, the leaves will be turning golden, the evenings will draw in quicker, and the shops will be bombarding us with Christmas offers.

It also means that people will want to turn the heating back on as we head through autumn and into winter. I use the words ‘will want to’, rather than ‘can’, because for many people, they simply won’t be able to afford to heat their homes.

Last winter, 13 million households tried to save on bills by not turning their heating on in cold weather. This year, while the energy price cap has now come down a touch, it is still nearly double what it was in winter 2021.

The reality for millions of households this winter is that, despite the small drop in the energy price cap, bills will be higher than last year. Research from the Resolution Foundation said that withdrawn energy support schemes and a rise in the daily standing charge will mean winter bill costs will be going up for one in three English households – the equivalent to 7.2 million homes – and almost half of the poorest households will face higher costs.

This should have been avoided. As I’ve written in this column before, a large part of why households are facing such a dire situation is because the UK has one of the worst insulated housing stocks in Western Europe. The leakier our homes, the more energy we need to heat them, meaning our bills are higher than they should be.

The Conservatives have repeatedly been urged to undertake a great national effort to properly insulate as many homes as possible. Whilst they are desperate to blame anything and everything else for this crisis, the truth is, years of their inaction has led us to this point.

Instead of delivering long-term, permanent and cost-effective solutions, they repeatedly opted for the ‘do nothing’ approach, before being forced to subsidise energy bills at a huge cost to the taxpayer. This was a last-minute, sticking plaster approach when they needed to match Labour’s ambition to insulate 19 million homes over the next decade.

At the last count, 57% of homes assessed in Ipswich in the past five years failed to meet the basic Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of a C. Ipswich Borough Council are doing a superb job in upgrading and retrofitting their homes which will make such a difference for their tenants, but they can’t cover private properties too.

Insulating our homes properly would not just have environmental benefits – although that is a major incentive – there are real financial rewards on offer too. Poorly insulated homes often face higher bills, and £1 of every £4 spent by UK households on energy is wasted due to poor insulation. According to Carbon Brief, if the Conservatives hadn’t ‘cut the green crap’ over the last decade, our energy bills would have been £9.8 billion lower over the past year.

I don’t know why the Conservatives refuse to act. It might be that they are so knackered out, bereft of talent, ideas and competence, they are simply unable to do so. It might be some warped ideology where they think that insulating homes is too ‘woke’. Perhaps both. Either way, they are set to hurt millions of households once again this winter with their idleness.

So while the Prime Minister flies around the country by private jet or helicopter, repeating the same tired, meaningless soundbites, millions of people will be sitting in their cold, damp homes, helpless, unable to afford to turn the heating on. That is the Conservative Party’s legacy after 13 years in power.