The number: £100. That's the Household Energy Payment. Up to 20 million households in England in council tax bands A to D will get it, paid through the council tax system from January 2027, the Treasury says.
"Capital investment will be £120 billion more over the Parliament than under the previous government's plans."
That line is in the Budget document the Chancellor, John Healey, published on 28 October. Capital spending is money for things that last. Roads, schools, flood walls and overhead lines, say. Think of it as buying a new boiler, where day-to-day spending is the gas bill afterwards.
A little further on, the same document trims department building budgets by 1% between 2027-28 and 2029-30, to raise £3 billion. Both are true, and squaring them is where we start.
This week: the three questions we left open last time, then the money for building things, where a big new sum goes, and what happens to your energy bill.
We said we'd keep score
Issue 1 ended with three things we didn't know. Wednesday settled one of them.
Building budgets. The Budget moves them in both directions at once, and the next section has the detail.
NISTA's next update. Still nothing. The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, the government body that keeps the UK's list of planned projects, last published that list on 9 March and said at the time that the list is updated twice a year. When we looked on 28 October, its GOV.UK page showed nothing newer.
Ireland's €275.4 billion. That's the total in Ireland's National Development Plan, its long-term building plan for 2026 to 2035, and it's too early to say how much of it turns into real projects. Ireland set its 2027 building budget, €20.3 billion, on 6 October, and we're watching for the first projects to start on site.
Building money peaks, then thins out
The Treasury's headline is the £120 billion. It compares this Parliament's capital spending with the plans the government inherited, and on that measure the total is comfortably higher. We did the sums: that's roughly £1,700 for every person in the UK, spread across this Parliament.
Departments' capital budgets, though, will be cut by 1% from 2027-28 to 2029-30, raising £3 billion, or about £1 billion a year shared across departments. Another £1.7 billion comes from building money the Treasury had set aside but not yet handed to any department.
The longer view matters more if you build things for a living. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is the official forecaster. It expects public sector net investment, which is the government's building spend minus wear and tear on what it already owns, to slip from 2.9% of the economy this year and next to 2.3% by 2031-32.
A second OBR measure, general government investment, counts what the government spends on building each year. It grows 14.6% in 2026 and 3.6% in 2027, then shrinks in 2028 and 2029.
To be fair, 2.3% of a growing economy is still a lot of money. With £24 billion to spare in 2029-30, the government also meets its investment rule, which requires debt to shrink as a share of the economy.
A £15.4 billion top-up for the government's own investor
The National Wealth Fund, the government-owned fund that invests alongside private companies, gets an extra £15.4 billion. That includes £2 billion for a new pot within it called the Energy Wealth Fund. Add the British Business Bank's share and the Treasury puts the combined top-up at £20.4 billion, which it expects to create and support 140,000 jobs.
Rachel Skinner, a former president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, will chair a review of rail infrastructure costs and report in six months. The government also plans a law so that legal challenges are less likely to leave essential projects in limbo.
Court cases are how local people and campaigners hold big schemes to account, though, so we'll be reading the wording of that law closely.
Smaller housing schemes on brownfield land, meaning sites that have been built on before, will be exempt from Biodiversity Net Gain, the rule that makes developers leave nature better off than they found it.
Will your energy bill come down?
A little, and mostly next year. The £100 payment arrives first, from January, and it costs £2.6 billion. The governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get their share of the money through the usual funding formula.
VAT (value added tax), already off household electricity in Great Britain, stays off until July 2027. The price cap, the limit the energy regulator Ofgem sets every three months on what suppliers can charge, is quoted as a yearly figure, and the Treasury expects the VAT move to keep it around £50 lower for April to June. By our sums, that's about £12 in cash over those three months. The Budget says Northern Ireland is expected to get extended VAT relief from April 2027.
Gas standing charges are the fixed daily fee you pay before your boiler has fired up once, and they average £108 a year. The government has asked Ofgem to abolish them and move the cost into the price you pay per unit, aiming for the end of 2027 or as soon as possible after that. Electricity standing charges are up for reform too, with details promised next year.
Mind you, the money still has to come from somewhere. The Treasury says most households will benefit, some may get less out of the change, and targeted help will come alongside it.
A planned charge on gas bills to pay for hydrogen projects, the Gas Shipper Obligation, is scrapped, and the government will fund those projects itself.
Policy costs are the charges on your bill that pay for government schemes. No more will be added unless they bring bills down or make supply more secure, starting with the next auction for renewable power contracts, Allocation Round 8.
Help for first homes, and a pay rise to £13.21
Housing gets £1.5 billion more for around 10,000 social and affordable homes in England, taking total investment in them past £40 billion over ten years. Your First Home, a scheme where the government lends buyers part of the price, gets £4.7 billion and aims to help 70,000 households buy a first home.
Water barely gets a look in. The document names it alongside energy, transport and housing as an area where the state will provide "greater strategic direction", but we couldn't find any new money for it.
For workers, the National Living Wage rises 3.9% to £13.21 an hour from 1 April 2027, and £100 million goes into local apprenticeship services.
What it means for you
Your bills. If you live in England in council tax bands A to D and pay your council tax by direct debit, expect £100 in your bank account from January. If you don’t, your council will invite you to apply, and only your council should contact you about it. Across Britain, the price cap for April to June should be about £50 a year lower than it would otherwise be, roughly £12 in your pocket, and VAT comes back in July. On our reading, scrapping the gas standing charge helps light gas users most, though that's the end of 2027 or later.
Your taxes. Tax on savings and property income goes up by a further two percentage points from April 2027, on top of the two-point rise already set for that date. Banks pay a higher surcharge on their profits for 15 months. The government's main rule is that day-to-day spending is paid for from tax and other income. The OBR puts the government's cushion against that rule at £15 billion in 2029-30, which we think is thin enough that the next Budget could be tougher.
Your job. If you work in construction, make the most of the next year or so, while public building money is at its peak. The OBR's forecast then has government investment shrinking in 2028 and 2029. Our report on the infrastructure skills gap has more on the jobs side: gridteamai.com/volume.html?v=RN026.
Your street. If the new law on legal challenges works as intended, big projects near you could start sooner, with less time stuck in court.
The short version
Energy help is real and modest: £100 for up to 20 million homes in England from January, and a price cap about £50 a year lower across Britain for the three months from April.
Capital spending this Parliament is £120 billion above the previous government's plans. Even so, department building budgets lose 1% from 2027-28, and the OBR sees government investment shrinking in 2028 and 2029.
Much of the new building money goes through the National Wealth Fund, which gets £15.4 billion more.
What we don't know yet
Standing charges. How Ofgem will scrap the gas standing charge without leaving some homes worse off, and whether it can do it by the end of 2027.
Policy costs. What the Cost Control Framework, the Treasury's new test for any charge added to bills, looks like when it arrives at the 2027 spending review. The government says it must be in place before any new policy costs go on bills.
Rail costs. What Rachel Skinner's review finds in six months' time.
The pipeline. When NISTA next updates its list of planned projects.
We'll keep score.
Which part of this Budget will you notice first: the £100, the cheaper electricity, or something else? Hit reply and tell us, or leave a comment.
If you know someone who works in construction or worries about their energy bill, forward this to them.
For the latest decisions, The Wire covers UK and Irish infrastructure news every weekday morning, and it's free: gridteamai.com/wire-archive. Our live map shows what's being built near you: gridteamai.com/map-explorer.
See you next week.
Anthony
Sources
HM Treasury (GOV.UK), "Budget 2026", 28 October 2026, including the OBR forecasts in its Tables 1.1 and 1.2 (our sums: £50 ÷ 4 = about £12 for three months; £3 billion ÷ 3 years = £1 billion a year). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2026-document/budget-2026-html
HM Treasury (GOV.UK), "Budget 2026: Breathing space for today, hope for the future", 28 October 2026. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/budget-2026-breathing-space-for-today-hope-for-the-future
National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (GOV.UK), organisation page and latest publications, viewed 28 October 2026. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/national-infrastructure-and-service-transformation-authority
NISTA and HM Treasury (GOV.UK), "Infrastructure Pipeline update signals future workforce needs", 9 March 2026. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/infrastructure-pipeline-update-signals-future-workforce-needs
Office for National Statistics, "Population estimates for the UK, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland: mid-2025", 1 October 2026 (UK population 69,483,900; our sum: £120 billion ÷ 69.48 million = about £1,730 per person). https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/latest
Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (gov.ie), "Statement by Minister Chambers on Budget 2027", 6 October 2026. https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-public-expenditure-infrastructure-public-service-reform-and-digitalisation/speeches/statement-by-minister-chambers-on-budget-2027/
Department of the Taoiseach (gov.ie), "Government publishes updated National Development Plan", 22 July 2025. https://www.gov.ie/ga/roinn-an-taoisigh/preaseisiuinti/government-publishes-updated-national-development-plan