CRC News |Carbon Reduction Commitment |Energy Efficiency Scheme

Over the past few weeks the government’s flagship energy efficiency policy, the Green Deal, has lurched from one setback to the next. On the one side is the Tea Party tendency in the Tory Party – those Tory MPs who don’t believe in climate change, or don’t think it’s worth bothering about. For them, attacking the Green Deal is just another way of undermining efforts to cut our carbon emissions and proves how out of touch they are with families struggling with soaring energy bills.

On the other side are ministers responsible for the Green Deal, who are just as out of touch with ordinary families affected by the cost of living crisis, and don’t seem to understand that unless serious improvements are made to the scheme, the public just won’t want to take it up. They dismiss anyone who wants to improve the Green Deal, to make it a better deal for the public, as talking down the scheme – when in reality, of course, exactly the opposite is true. The real champions of the Green Deal are those of us who are trying to improve it and make it a good deal.

Labour wants the Green Deal to succeed. We had a pay-as-you-save scheme in our manifesto, and it was the last Labour government who initiated pilot programmes to test the scheme. If done properly, a pay-as-you-save energy efficiency scheme could create jobs, lower bills for families and cut carbon emissions.

Instead of trying to force it on to the public, ministers should focus on improving the Green Deal to make it as attractive as possible, delivers savings for hard-pressed bill payers and offers real incentives so millions of people want to take it up.

Environment policies under attack include the green deal incentive that offers insulation to homeowners.

The green deal, the government’s big policy initiative for fighting climate change, is supposed to plug one of Britain’s biggest sources of carbon emissions – draughty, fuel-poor homes.

Far from being a Liberal Democrat invention, it bore the imprimatur of David Cameron himself. One FTSE100 business leader who visited No 10 dared to joke about the name, only for the prime minister to explain that the label was his own idea.

So for Tories to fight publicly for the policy to be ditched – days after its launch by the Conservative climate minister, Greg Barker – is a big step. It reveals yet deeper fault-lines in the Tory party on green policy.

“The fighting about green policy has been intensifying for months,” said Ruth Davis, chief policy adviser at Greenpeace UK. “There is a sense that the government is strategy-less – there are a lot of senior [Tories] who are just looking for places where they can pick holes in climate policy. Cameron needs to take charge.”

Billions of pounds of investment and the potential for hundreds of thousands of green jobs hang in the balance as companies stall investment while they try to figure out what the government’s policy direction might be.

Potential investors in offshore wind suggested the overwhelming message was that Cameron needed to be more decisive. “Our investment is on hold until we have certainty and clarity regarding the policy environment,” said Magued Eldaief, managing director of General Electric.