Households are wasting hundreds of pounds a year on gas and electricity bills – despite Government efforts to cut energy consumption, the Whitehall spending watchdog has warned. The National Audit Office (NAO) said that while the Government is currently spending £2.6 billion-a-year on energy reduction programmes, household consumption has risen by 19% between 1990 and 2004. The increase came despite a 19% increase in household energy efficiency over the same period. While energy consumption has started to fall since 2005, the NAO estimated that households could cut average bills by at least 30% – around £280-a-year for the typical household – if they adopted all the available cost-saving measures. It pointed to recent surveys by the Energy Saving Trust which found that 71% of households leave electronic appliances on standby, 63% forget to turn the lights off in empty rooms, and 28% leave the heating on when the house is unoccupied. At the same time, the NAO said that as the growth in consumer electronics, the emergence of more and smaller households and the tendency of people to keep their homes warmer had all helped to offset the gains in energy efficiency. With household consumption accounting for around 30% of all UK energy consumption, the NAO said that reducing current levels was an important element of the Government’s policy for tacking climate change. However it expressed concern that non-compliance with new, tighter, building regulations could undermine the requirement for new homes to be more energy efficient. The NAO also cast doubt on the ability of industry to meet the required installation rates for loft and cavity wall insulation. Edward Leigh, the chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee which oversees the work of the NAO, said that the Government needed to gain a clearer understanding of how its energy reduction programmes work. “While three quarters of people say they are concerned about climate change, actions don’t seem to back that up,” he said. “About 70% of people leave their appliances on stand by, and almost two thirds of people keep lights burning in empty rooms. So there is a challenge to us all to be smarter in our use of energy. But there is also a prize. The average household could cut its annual household energy bill by almost £300 by being more energy efficient.”

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