The Government’s Heat and Building Strategy has come under fire, being described by one industry leader as “insufficient for the scale of the challenge we face”.
The comments, from Mike Foster, CEO of the Energy and Utilities Alliance, come in the wake of the government announcing a Clean Homes Grant as part of the Heat and Buildings Strategy, of £450 million over the next three years.
Commenting on the announcement, Mr Foster said: “The grant hardly sets the world alight and is insufficient to the scale of the challenge we face in terms of reaching Net Zerio.”
And RIBA President, Simon Allford, said despite over a year of waiting, the strategy does not go far enough.
“Positive references to ‘fabric first’ and ‘whole building’ approaches are overshadowed by the lack of adequate funding and the absence of vital embodied carbon targets for new buildings,” he explaine. “The Government has clearly stated and shown an ambition to lead, but to do so it must urgently change gear. Now.
“Moving ahead, we hope for tighter regulation, substantial and sustained funding and adaptation of tax mechanisms to encourage ‘able to pay’ homeowners to retrofit their homes. The Government needs to define exactly how we will deliver ‘no- and low-regret’ actions. We’re hosting COP26 – we need to demonstrate global climate leadership.”
Mike Foster stated that although the strategy subsidises 30,000 heat pumps being installed each year and is well short of the support needed to get to 600,000 heat pumps installed each year by 2028. “My suspicion is that the Chancellor is putting the brakes on the Prime Minister’s flight of green fantasy,” he continued.
“I suspect hydrogen-ready boiler installations will be far greater than that number by 2028, suggesting that consumers have made their choice. But that choice, between heat pumps or hydrogen-ready boilers, is one they should have.
Mr Foster is also concerned with the plight of those in fuel poverty. “For the 4.5 million households currently in fuel poverty, faced with rocketing bills and cuts to their universal credit, they must wonder what they have done wrong.
“The £5000 grant only pays half the cost of a heat pump, so those in fuel poverty will see no warmth from the government’s generosity; instead, it is middle-class bung for people who were probably going to fit a heat pump anyway.
“For the same amount of money, £150 million a year, half a million homes could have loft insulation fitted, saving each household £135 a year, and removing 290,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year. Instead, removing 45,000 gas boilers, replacing them with the subsidised heat pumps will remove only 71,000 tonnes of carbon each year. This is hardly the COP figure the Prime Minister wants to read.”
Julie Hirigoyen, Chief Executive at UKGBC welcomed recognition by Government that we must move away from heating our buildings with fossil fuels – and that households must be helped to make the transition to clean electric heating.
“However, phasing out gas boilers from 2035 is not ambitious enough – there needs to be a clear cut-off date from 2030 to put us on track to meet net zero,” she said. “And £5,000 grants will help just 30,000 households – a drop in the ocean in the context of the 900,000 annual installations we need to see by 2028. Worse still, there’s no targeted financial help at all for low income households to embark on the journey to clean electric heating – meaning that the gap between rich and poor will widen, not close.
“Yet more concerning is the Strategy’s failure to address several key priorities that UKGBC’s recent work has shown are non-negotiable to a net-zero carbon built environment by 2050.
“This Heat & Buildings strategy provides scant further detail on any of these aspects, and falls well short of what is required to make the transition to clean heat speedy and fair.
“Energy efficiency 101 tells us that retrofitting homes with insulation and efficiency measures, has the multiple benefits of lowering fuel bills, enabling low carbon heat solutions to work more effectively, and creating jobs. If we don’t urgently take that basic first step we run the risk of overloading the electricity grid and continue to fail to meet the needs of society’s most vulnerable. It’s nothing short of shocking to see no reference to a successor for the ill-fated Green Homes Grant voucher scheme, and a huge missed opportunity to not introduce long-term structural drivers of consumer demand like Green Stamp Duty or 0% VAT on renovations. Equally disturbing to see no firm new proposals on ratcheting up minimum standards for privately rented homes or regulations to improve the energy performance of owner-occupied homes.
“We need all of these policies – and more – if our built environment is to stand any chance at all of getting to net zero.”
Eddie Tuttle, Director of Policy, Public Affairs and Research at CIOB, said there is much left wanting in this publication.
“It is concerning to see that there is no clear timeline nor sufficient funding for such an undertaking, and the role of retrofitting as a solution is significantly undermined,” he said.
“Government must pursue a coordinated approach alongside the construction industry and professional bodies to encourage consumer confidence in the grant scheme. As it stands the listed incentives will not cover the full cost of heat pump installations and many new, large scale housing developments have not been required to provide heat pumps as standard. Without greater clarity on how these key concerns will be addressed to ensure that new and existing policy works cohesively, Government risks poor consumer take-up as many will not be willing to sign up to receive incentives.
“A lack of consumer confidence and take-up of schemes will lead to crucial net zero targets being missed.”
