From insomnia to extinction – The Warren Report
This summer, just after Parliament rose for its summer break, the Government unceremoniously killed off its flagship energy efficiency programme.
The Green Deal Finance scheme had initially been intended to be biggest home improvement programme since 1945, improving 15m homes during this decade, according to its lead minister, the Conservative Greg (now Lord) Barker.
He it was who memorably went on BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours programme in March 2013, shortly after a less than triumphant launch. And admitted that “if we don’t have 10,000 Green Deal plans by the end of the year, I’ll be having sleepless nights.”
At the end of 2013, there were under one rather than ten thousand households signed up. Indeed as we now have the final figures for the actual number of finance plans sold before his successors unceremoniously pulled the plug, it seems that poignantly there are still only 9,999 “live” Green Deal plans.
Lord Barker’s insomnia may sadly continue forever, unless one or two plans still under negotiation are finalised.
Originally promoted even before the 2010 General Election by the Conservative shadow energy secretary Greg Clark (now Communities Secretary), the pay-as-you-save concept formed a key component of the formal Coalition Agreement. It then became the subject of a major preparation exercise, certainly within the Department of Climate Change, where at one stage no less than 73 civil servants were fully employed upon preparing Green Deal Finance for launch in autumn 2012.
The 2011 Energy Act enabled any capital expended upon the installation of energy saving devices to be recoverable via electricity bills, rather than by mortgage extensions. This was despite all the initial preparatory work done prior to the 2010 Election concluding that it would be preferable for repayments to be made via the council tax, rather than fuel bills.
Very early on, the fatal decision was made to deem electricity providers, rather than local authorities, the key players.
To read the full article see the latest November/December edition of EiBI.
