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The government has scrapped its iconic green home grant scheme, the centerpiece of Boris Johnson’s promise to “rebuild greener” from the Covid-19 pandemic, just over six months after its launch.
The abandonment of the £ 1.5 billion program, which offered grants to households of up to £ 5,000 to £ 10,000 to install low-carbon insulation or heating, leaves the UK without a plan to address one of the biggest sources of poverty. Emissions of greenhouse gases.
People who have received their coupon requests under the scheme will receive the money owed, but no new requests will be accepted after the end of this month.
Green activists said the removal of the program, the only major green stimulus policy so far announced by the government and originally expected to create tens of thousands of green jobs, was a major blow as the government prepares to host vital talks. of the UN on climate, called Cop26. , this November.
Ed Matthew, campaign manager for the E3G think tank, told the Observer: “The disappearance of the green housing grant is a disgrace. [before Cop26], and a disaster in terms of the UK heading towards zero [carbon emissions]. Emissions from buildings and transportation have stagnated for the past 10 years. If we don’t have programs to address this, we have no hope of hitting net zero. “
The green housing grant has struggled since its launch last September, after it was announced in July as the central pillar of the government’s bid to “build back better” and create new green jobs to help the economy recover from the decline. pandemic. There were more than 123,000 grant applications at the end of February, but only 28,000 vouchers had been issued and only 5,800 energy efficiency measures had been installed.
Builders complained of excessive bureaucracy when registering for the plan, while households found it difficult to access. An American company was awarded the contract to administer the grants, but a Guardian investigation found that numerous people were unable to get an answer. Many people received conflicting advice, while builders have complained that heat pump installations in particular have been hampered by the rules.
Last week, a select committee of parliamentarians issued a damning assessment that found the scheme to be “flawed. [in] implementation… the administration looks nothing short of disastrous. ” Far from creating new green jobs as promised, the environmental audit committee found that some builders had laid off staff due to problems with the plan. The deputies recommended an urgent review.
The government said on Saturday that an additional £ 300 million would be earmarked to help low-income people gain access to energy efficiency improvements, through local authorities.
Kwasi Kwarteng, Secretary of State for Commerce and Energy, said: “Improving the country’s houses with energy efficiency measures means that we can reduce emissions and save people money on their energy bills. Today’s funding push will mean that even more households in England will be able to access these vital grants through their local authority. This latest announcement brings our total energy efficiency spending to over £ 1.3bn in the next financial year, giving installers the certainty that they need to plan ahead, create new jobs and train the next generation of builders. , plumbers and merchants “.
Overall, however, the amount of money spent on green homes is shrinking from the 2.5 billion pounds advertised with fanfare last summer. Of that, last year £ 1 billion went to local authorities to improve housing for low-income people, which now rose to £ 1.3 billion. But the green housing grant was meant to shell out an additional £ 1.5 billion, most of which remains unspent.
Eliminating green housing grants leaves the 20 million moderate-income households without any help from the government to make the necessary improvements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The UK’s drafty home heating accounts for about 14% of the country’s carbon emissions, according to the Climate Change Committee, and successive efforts to tackle the problem have run into trouble. The failure of the green housing grant follows the abandonment in 2015 of the previous scheme, the green deal loan scheme.
Kate Blagojevic, Climate Director at Greenpeace UK, said: “We are only seven months away from hosting a global climate conference where we are supposed to lead the world in climate action. But we cannot expect anyone to think that we are a credible leader when our own policies on climate action go in the wrong direction. “
The government said on Saturday that the plan was only intended to be a short-term stimulus. However, Matthew said that was part of the problem. “There has been a stop-start approach [to home energy efficiency] This has prevented companies from investing in skills and has not given confidence to households, ”he said.
“They [the government] they must stand up and create a new green program that works and is funded long-term from the start. It is surely not beyond the ability of this government to give away money at a time of economic crisis. “
