Invest in home insulation and heat pumps, ministers urged

The Conservative government’s 2019 election manifesto pledged to spend over £9bn on insulating British homes more effectively and enhancing energy efficiency, in line with its legal obligation to become carbon neutral by 2050.

The pledge has been notable by its absence since, with Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s March 2020 budget offering only a vague commitment to “reducing emissions from homes” — with no mention of the original £9.2bn manifesto pledge. 

Nevertheless, civil groups are demanding the UK government urgently bring forward the £3.6bn for insulation and £4bn for heat pumps it specifically promised in 2019, in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Sunak and Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.

Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Save the Children and Age UK are among the 33 organisations who want insulation grants for all households, and an extra £4bn by 2025 to replace gas boilers with heat pumps.

The letter also called for universal credit payments to be increased in line with April’s inflation rate, rather than the lower 3.1% planned. It asked for the £20-per-week uplift that was introduced as part of the Coronavirus response to be restored.

Desired measures further include targeted support to cover against the anticipated rise in energy bills for household incomes, expansion of wind and solar energy and a commitment to ruling out new North Sea oil and gas and maintaining the fracking ban. The Guardian understands that ministers are finalising plans for a new energy security strategy that boosts renewables and pumps more oil and gas from the North Sea.

The Conservative government’s 2019 election manifesto pledged to spend over £9bn on insulating British homes more effectively and enhancing energy efficiency. Climate and poverty campaigners are concerned that potential rapid relief measures, such as home insulation, will be sidelined in favour of projects like new licenses for the North Sea. New exploration there would likely take years to produce gas.

Juliet Phillips, senior policy adviser at E3G, one of the groups behind the letter, said: “Green homes are the most obvious energy security solution no one is talking about.

“Energy security starts at home: this means supercharging a renovation wave to cut energy bills and permanently reduce the exposure of families to volatile international gas markets – boosting energy efficiency and rolling out electric heat pumps”.

Rebecca Newsom, head of politics at Greenpeace UK, said: “This is a fossil fuel crisis, and new fossil fuels from the likes of fracking or new North Sea oil and gas aren’t going to solve our problems.

“We can reach true energy freedom and stand up to [Vladimir] Putin, but that needs the government to back properly funded measures to support households, accelerate renewables and properly fund home upgrades to reduce our use of gas altogether”.

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think tank has calculated that energy efficiency measures installed in the last decade save UK householders almost £1.2bn each year.