I certainly agree that we need a plan that goes much wider, reaches a lot more homes, and focuses on new build.
The problem is that so successful is the direction of current Government policy that by 2017 about 200,000 homes, as opposed to 1.3 million, will be eligible for some assistance with energy efficiency measures, and the total level of investment in energy efficiency will have halved. In essence, we have ended up with a policy where only those who qualify as fuel poor can get any help to invest in energy efficiency measures. That is no doubt partly why the Committee on Climate Change recently claimed that cutting carbon emissions from the home was now a policy in reverse. Matthew Bell, its
chief executive, has made it clear that the best way to reduce consumer bills and tackle climate change is to make sure that more homes are properly insulated, but instead this Government have managed to ensure that the rate of home insulation has fallen by 90%. A recent estimate shows that over the course of the last Parliament and the present one, the number of households receiving help will decline by a staggering 76%. The Government have scrapped ideas for new homes to be zero-carbon, thus, as the Chair of the Committee pointed out, ensuring that we store up additional retro-fit costs for the future.
In terms of energy savings, new technological developments, and a growth in green energy jobs, this Government’s achievement has been not to be the greenest ever but the biggest failure ever. We need a settled Government policy and an environment where businesses and consumers can plan ahead. We need a fair and simple plan that incentivises households and the rented sector to invest in home energy improvements. We would be helped in this by a signal from Government that they intend to support the Leasehold Reform (Energy Efficiency) Bill. Alas, we have a Government bereft of practical policies to meet more than half of the emissions reductions required by 2030, and many of the existing EU-linked initiatives are now in doubt because of the botched referendum. The abandonment of the carbon capture and storage initiative is just the latest in a series of U-turns by a Government who are without direction and any coherent energy policy.
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