Today, 8th September 2022, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss announced a two-year plan to address surging energy bills. Please see below quotes from E3G experts on the story.
Juliet Phillips, Senior Policy Advisor at E3G said:
“Energy security starts at home, and the lack of reference to energy saving measures like insulation and heat pumps is the biggest gap in today’s package. Through offering permanent bill reductions, energy efficiency offers the best deal for households and for the public purse. Fracking and nuclear can’t keep us warm this winter – we urge the government to announce a new home retrofit scheme as soon as possible.”
Ed Matthew, Campaigns Director at E3G said:
“We need an additional £5 billion committed to insulate homes. We have the worst insulated homes in western Europe and making them more energy efficient is the best long-term solution to high energy bills. Failure to mention insulation today was a titanic sized hole in Truss’s statement which could sink her strategy to address the long-term causes of the energy bill crisis.”
Available for comment
The following experts are available for commentary – please contact them directly:
Juliet Phillips, Senior Policy Advisor, E3G
+44 7548 097 061, juliet.phillips@e3g.org
Colm Britchfield, Policy Advisor, E3G
+44 (0) 7542 865 564, colm.britchfield@e3g.org
Ed Matthew, Campaigns Director, E3G
+44 7827 157 906, ed.matthew@e3g.org
ENDS
Notes to Editors
E3G is an independent climate change think tank with a global outlook. We work on the frontier of the climate landscape, tackling the barriers and advancing the solutions to a safe climate. Our goal is to translate climate politics, economics and policies into action. About – E3G
The UK spends more money on energy wasted through the walls and roofs of our houses than any other country in Western Europe – leaving families poorer, unhealthier and colder. Given the new energy context we are all living in, this cannot be allowed to continue. E3G’s Home Energy Security Strategy calls on the government to:
- Step up energy efficiency support for the UK’s most vulnerable households this year, delivering the outstanding £1.4bn from the 2019 Conservative manifesto for efficiency, and by swiftly putting the next phase of the ECO programme into legislation to upgrade 450,000 fuel poor homes over the next 3 years.
- Introduce new support this year to help hard-pressed families upgrade their homes by expanding ECO to include a new “ECO Plus” scheme giving families on middle and lower incomes access to subsidised energy efficiency measures delivered by their energy companies. With £1bn per year, ECO Plus could support up to 2.1m households over three years.
- Build the supply chain with skills investment and long-term, regulatory market signals, starting this year by launching an Olympic-style skills and training programme for the retrofit supply chain; and providing long-term certainty to the market through strengthened private rented sector minimum energy efficiency standards, and a roadmap to minimum performance standards for all housing tenures including owner-occupiers.
- Improve the consumer experience through public engagement and a trusted advice service, starting this year by making independent energy advice readily available to people across the country so they can understand what help is available to them, what steps they can take to improve their homes, and guide them through the process.
- Support attractive green finance options for people who want to invest further, putting new reporting requirements on mortgage lenders and setting up concessional green home finance through the UK Infrastructure Bank in the medium term.
- Restructure incentives to encourage home retrofit by removing legacy policy costs from electricity bills – saving households around £100 per year and removing a barrier to clean, electric heating; and introducing tax incentives like an energy saving stamp duty land tax adjustment.
For further enquiries email press@e3g.org or phone +44 (0)7783 787 863
