Tories plan to scrap low-carbon housebuilding, Greens back new nuclear reactors, and Labour put oil-drilling decisions on hold

New homes could be built without solar panels, heat pumps and high-grade insulation, leading to higher household bills if the Conservative party wins the next general election.

Kemi Badenoch made scrapping the future homes standard (FHS) one of the central planks of her bid to become the next prime minister at the Tory party conference this week.

Appointment or renewal reminder appears in victims’ calendar to lure them into logging in to fake Google, Microsoft or PayPal page

You’re preparing for the week ahead and take a look at your Google calendar. There’s an entry for a meeting that you must have completely forgotten. The note that pops up when you click on it says you’ll be reviewing a project and includes a link to more details. Confused, you follow it to find out more; the website you land on asks for logon details, and you provide them.

Unfortunately, this was not a failure of your memory but a calendar phishing scam. You have handed your name and password to fraudsters who will sell it on in a batch with other people’s details, use it to break into your work email, or to persuade you that they are contacting you from your bank, or another institution.

With an extremely wet and windy winter forecast, take steps to keep you and your home safe and dry

With the Met Office warning that this year’s supersized El Niño could mean a wet and stormy winter lies ahead, it’s never been more important to maintain your home.

Payouts for storm damage to UK homes surged 32% to £244m in 2025 amid the destruction caused by the heavy rain and strong winds that accompanied the likes of Storm Éowyn and Storm Floris.

Finance expert launches Small Ideas Initiative to gather ‘practical, low-cost’ ideas to put before cross-party panel

Every day, people run into what the finance expert Martin Lewis calls “the life-potholes of unintended consequences” – clunky systems and poorly conceived rules that make life harder than it should be. His latest project, the Small Ideas Initiative, will attempt to address that, with a cross-party panel of politicians and policymakers crowdsourcing ideas for everyday fixes to take to government.

The ideas could cover anything from health and schools to policing, tech and money. Lewis is encouraging people to submit ideas for “practical, low-cost, non-controversial ways to improve the UK” before 12 November.

Thinking Allowed, The Artificial Human and Free Thinking among other programmes hit by £500m cuts

BBC Radio 4’s consumer rights show You and Yours is to be axed after more than 50 years, becoming one of the latest victims of the corporation’s £500m cuts plan.

The programme, once described by the former Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer as “one of the most important” on the station, is one of a handful to be cut as the BBC searches for shows that can be more easily adapted as podcasts.

Exclusive: Officials working on further radical changes that would change how much energy companies could charge customers

John Healey is planning a major intervention to cut energy bills for poorer households in this month’s budget, after ministers became alarmed at forecasts that show bills rising by hundreds of pounds in January.

The chancellor is working on plans to spend more than £1bn to help energy consumers, the bulk of which is likely to go towards increasing the discount given to households on certain benefits.

Industry leaders say bogus claims rose 14% last year, pushing up premiums for all customers

An insurance fraudster who pocketed more than £14,000 for the supposed theft of Lego sets, fishing gear and gaming consoles was behind one of last year’s most high-profile bogus claims.

Investigators uncovered £1.34bn of fraud in 2025, a 14% increase on the year before, according to the Association of British Insurers (ABI).

Sykes Holiday Cottages showed no empathy and insisted on paperwork we didn’t have so soon after my husband’s death

We booked a break with Sykes Holiday Cottages for 11 of us to celebrate my mum’s 80th birthday last February. The cost was £2,400, paid for by my 87-year-old dad, but it was my husband who made the booking.

In January, my husband was diagnosed with aggressive lymphoma, and he died 10 days before the trip. My parents and some other members of the party still planned to take the holiday, and my dad informed Sykes of the death, since my husband was their point of contact.

Scammers reuse personal details harvested from fake Esta websites – and texts and calls can keep arriving for months

When the British actor Lisa Riley was preparing to travel to the US last year, she applied online for an Esta so she would not need a visa. After finding the site through a Google search she filled in her passport, bank and personal details and waited for the confirmation, which normally takes just under an hour.

When it failed to arrive, she emailed an address from the site where she had paid and got back a message unlike any she had seen before, with a link to a website that displayed a jumble of words and letters.

The Naylors’ four-bedroom home in Milton Keynes acts like a mini-power station after retrofitting solar panels, a battery and a heat pump

Clare Naylor paid close attention to how much energy she and her family were using last winter, filling hot-water bottles and bringing out extra blankets to ensure they didn’t go over budget. This year, she won’t have to worry as she is guaranteed not to receive a bill.

While millions of British households face the highest energy charges in three years from this week after a 4% rise in the price cap, and predictions of a 16% increase in January, upgrades to Naylor’s home mean she will not have to pay a thing.