Conservatives’ ‘Green Deal’ gets mixed reception
Peta Hodge
16th December 2009
If it forms the next Government, the Conservative Party has promised to pilot a new ‘Green Deal’ that would give every household the right to have up to £6,500 of home energy efficiency improvements.
The Mayor of London and 14 local councils – covering more than three million homes – have agreed to trial the ‘pay as you save’ scheme, under which the cost of the work would be paid back through households’ energy bills and savings from improved energy efficiency.
Greg Clark, the Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said that the Green Deal would "help millions of families to benefit from energy efficiency improvements to their homes – creating jobs and tackling fuel poverty in their areas.”
The UK Green Building Council is among those to have welcomed the announcement, its chief executive Paul King calling it “a hugely welcome step in the right direction”.
“It begins to tackle the key obstacle that householders face, which is the high upfront cost of much of this work,” he said.
"It's great to see the Conservatives taking on board our recommendations that a wide range of low carbon refurbishment providers be encouraged into the market, such as the high street retailers, who have trusted brands and expertise in consumer relations.”
Green Party spokesperson Dr Spencer Fitz-Gibbon was less than enthusiastic about the proposal, however. “The problem with the Conservatives' plan is that the £6,500 figure seems to have been plucked out of the air. It bears no relation to the actual work that may need to be done in order to bring Britain's housing stock up to the energy-saving standards we need,” he said.
“The important thing is that we meet the emissions reduction targets demanded by the world's scientists. These give us a very challenging starting point, and we simply won't meet those targets if we apply an arbitrary upper limit to how much work individual families can get done.”
Dave Timms, UK climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth – while conceding that the Conservatives’ proposal “is certainly part of a strategy for decarbonising the UK housing stock” – expressed similar concerns.
“We don’t think it’s nearly enough for all homes – some of which might need £10,000, £20,000, £30,000 or even £40,000 [for energy efficiency improvements],” he said.
Because of that, the measure would not be enough on its own to meet the Government’s target of reducing total greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, he added.
“The Conservatives are going to have to come up with a mechanism to do that. It may be possible to crank up the maximum level of money higher than £6,500, but there are limits to how much you can do that under a ‘pay as you save’ model,” Timms said.
“What the Conservatives need to say is how this will work for the most-expensive-to-improve properties, they also need to come up with a proper explanation of how this is going to work for the fuel poor, people who might be a credit risk and, especially, people who don’t own their own homes – there is a problem with the tennant/landlord split and it’s difficult to see how this would bridge it.”
He added: “That doesn’t mean it’s not a useful policy – though we do need more detail on how it’s going to work – what it’s not is a comprehensive strategy for retrofitting the UK housing stock.”
Recent research from the National Insulation Association suggests that lack of awareness on the part of householders is one factor holding back energy efficiency improvements in UK homes.
Broadly welcoming the Conservatives’ proposals today, the NIA’s Bev Coombe said the research showed: “That while 70 per cent of UK residents believe that reducing their carbon footprint is either extremely or very important, the vast majority are unaware that a major contributor to the UK’s carbon emissions is their own home.
“In fact, 67 per cent of residents in the UK are unaware that more than 40 per cent of their homes energy is escaping through uninsulated lofts and walls – and they could be saving around £265 a year on their fuel bills by having these insulated.”