The New Economics Foundation's Alex Chapman fires back at Nils Pratley's call for a targeted social tariff, arguing that building a new means-testing bureaucracy inside a privatised energy industry is a recipe for the same arbitrary cruelty that plagues adult social care. The letter reframes energy affordability not as a benefits question but as a universal rights question — enough warmth to survive winter, enough electricity for lights and a fridge. Chapman's core objection to targeting is structural, not sentimental. The Resolution Foundation's own proposal penalises households based on the income of the highest earner, which Chapman calls "rough justice" — an admission by its own advocates that the targeting mechanism is blunt. Creating eligibility thresholds inside a privatised retail market means replicating the worst features of the UK benefits system: administrative overhead, cliff edges, stigma, and the political trap of dividing households into "worthy" and "unworthy." The alternative proposed is deceptively simple: have the Treasury fund a genuine price cap on an essential block of electricity and gas for every household. No targeting, no eligibility checks, no new bureaucracy inside energy suppliers. The cost sits on the public balance sheet where it can be debated openly rather than hidden in cross-subsidies between consumer groups. Chapman notes that electrically heated homes should be allowed to transfer their gas allowance to electricity — a small design detail that reveals real policy thought. The long-term funding question is where the proposal gets interesting. Chapman gestures toward a rising block tariff for very high consumption households — the same mechanism Pratley criticised — but frames it as one option among several. The more provocative reference is Australia's "solar sharer" scheme, which gives every household three hours of free midday electricity, turning renewable oversupply into a universal benefit. This is a fundamentally different vision: cheap energy as a dividend from public infrastructure investment rather than a welfare payment. Andy Burnham's campaign to universalise adult social care is cited as the political analogy. The argument is that once you accept the principle — energy essentials are a right — the design follows. Means-testing isn't just inefficient; it embeds a political fight about who deserves help that consumes more energy than the policy saves. The weakness in the letter is the silence on cost. A Treasury-funded universal cap on essential energy use would be expensive, and the political viability depends entirely on numbers Chapman doesn't provide. The Australian solar model is suggestive but far from directly transferable to the UK's climate and grid structure. The argument is strongest as a critique of targeting and weakest as a costed alternative. What makes this debate worth tracking is the structural question underneath it: should energy policy be designed as welfare (targeted, means-tested, administered by suppliers) or as infrastructure (universal, Treasury-funded, treated like the NHS). The UK is approaching another energy price spike with neither system in place, and the design choice made now will lock in institutional architecture for decades.
