People will be urged to turn down thermostats by two degrees as energy campaign revived

The public will be urged to turn down their thermostats by two degrees this winter as a Government energy campaign is revived.

Ministers hope to save British households £400 per year with the new messaging drive, which intends to cut energy usage by 15 per cent.

The proposals are scheduled to be unveiled before Christmas by Grant Shapps, the Business Secretary, ahead of changes to the energy price guarantee.

Current state support with bills will only extend to all households until April, at which point typical household bills are on course to rise to £3,000 per year.

As well as turning down thermostats by 2C, other components of the campaign will include installing energy-efficient lightbulbs and include reducing the flow rate of boilers, the Times reported.

The latter measure will help households to save around £100 per year, according to current Government estimates.

During Liz Truss’s short tenure as Prime Minister, details emerged of an energy-saving public information push that was the brainchild of Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary at the time.

However, this was vetoed by Ms Truss – who was reportedly “ideologically opposed” to the idea – while Graham Stuart, the climate minister, defended the decision to scrap the publicity blitz by insisting: “We are not a nanny state government.”

A source close to Mr Rees-Mogg confirmed to The Telegraph that details of the new campaign appeared to be “pretty similar” to the scheme he had planned to introduce.

Advice already published by the Government on its ‘Help for Households’ website includes turning down radiators that are not in use and draft-proofing windows and doors, which could reduce a household’s annual energy bills by around £70 each.

While the Department for Business is understood to acknowledge everyone has different energy needs, it is keen to help those who want to cut their bills further amid the cost-of-living crisis.

Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, has set a target of reducing Britain’s energy usage by 15 per cent by 2030, bringing it closer to other European countries, and on Thursday confirmed an extra £6 billion spend between 2025 to 2028 to improve energy efficiency.

Heating costs are expected to remain significantly higher than average levels for the rest of the decade in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, the scorecard published by the Treasury alongside the Autumn Statement did not take into account government support beyond the next financial year.

Dame Andrea Leadsom, the former business secretary, last week urged Mr Hunt to help families reduce their energy usage, giving the examples of individuals putting timers on their Economy 7 boilers and reducing the temperature of their hot water.

“There are things that families could do for themselves, and the Chancellor could of course require energy suppliers to do much more by going house to house to help people who are really struggling this winter,” Dame Andrea said.

Mr Hunt said Mr Shapps’s plans will be “very much along the lines she describes” and said the Government would enter into “a new contract” with families after the end of the universal support package.

“We are helping people, but we are also saying, ‘We need you to also do things to help improve energy efficiency’,” he said.

“We are asking people to help themselves by taking the kind of measures that she mentions, so that when we are not able to offer sustained support people’s energy bills are lower."

A Government spokesman said: “Our existing public information campaign, Help for Households, is driving up the public’s awareness of all the support available to help them with the cost of living, including saving money on energy bills.

“We are also investing £6.6 billion in total this parliament to improve energy efficiency across the country, with the majority of our support targeting those on low income and vulnerable households.”