Labour MP Steve McCabe has called on the government to publish the long-overdue energy efficiency review…
It’s safe to say under the Conservative administration energy efficiency has taken something of a backseat. The scrapping of the Zero Carbon Homes initiative, the Green Deal and subsidies for renewable energy caused an uneasy feeling in the sector.
Green building and efficiency remains an important part of reducing the carbon footprint of the building sector. Significant amounts of pollution is caused by the existing building stock and as such there has been a global push to reduce this by creating buildings that have a low carbon footprint. Scotland, for example, recently brought in new legislation designed to improve standards in commercial buildings by putting the onus on owners to ensure carbon targets are mapped out before selling a property.
The UK government had planned to publish a review in April relating to the efficiency of domestic energy consumption and renewable energy standards. However, it is September and no sign of the review is forthcoming. Now, a Labour MP is calling on the government to publish the long-awaited review.
The Bonfield Review, which is being produced by chair of the BRE Group Peter Bonfield, was due in April. Local elections and the EU referendum campaign are said to be behind the delay.
Writing for BusinessGreen today, Labour MP for Birmingham Selly Oak Steve McCabe said the government needed to do more.
“We need a commitment to a radical and diversified energy policy which includes a mixture of investment incentives, loan schemes, reforms to property law and clear communication with homeowners,” he wrote.
“The Bonfield Review promised to be the catalyst for delivering such initiatives. It’s high time the government published it before they embark on any more expensive and confusing energy policy U-turns.”
The review aimed to carry out an “independent review of consumer protection, advice, standards and enforcement for UK housing energy efficiency and renewable energy”. Furthermore, it will have a hand in shaping the future of green housing policy once it is published.
Scrapping Green Deal was a controversial decision, although the programme was not without its faults as well. A report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) earlier this year revealed the Green Deal scheme performed badly during its lifecycle.
Green Deal, the government’s flagship energy efficiency programme, was designed to help householders improve the efficiency of their home via a loan scheme. However, the programme was discontinued last summer amidst significant controversy.
The committee’s report stated uptake for the scheme was “woefully low” due to a lack of testing. Additionally, it said the forecasted demand for the scheme was “excessively optimistic” and “gave a completely misleading picture of the scheme’s prospects to Parliament and other stakeholders”.
McCabe said the scraping of the scheme had a significant impact on the green building sector.
“The collapse of the Green Deal and the government decision to renege on the zero-carbon commitment for all new homes have impacted on infrastructure investment, job opportunities, and energy security.
“The result is an enormous missed opportunity in terms of meeting carbon targets and fuel poverty assistance but also in previous ambitions for growing the green economy.”
UK Green Building Council’s policy advisor Richard Twinn said: “As the Bonfield Review has got more delayed it has focused officials’ minds more on delivering ECO.
“So at the moment we haven’t seen any sort of proposal for what a more comprehensive policy package would look like. We are solely stuck with ECO and the minimum standards at the moment.”
He added: “We are very keen to see the outcomes from the Bonfield Review because it should help the industry to understand much better what it should be doing and help with driving standards, but I don’t see any imminent prospect of there being some whizzy new policy on the other side of it that the government is going to come out with.”
He concluded: “We need to be building the supply chain now, coming up with solutions for harder-to-reach properties and integrating efficiency and heat, and none of that is really being dealt with at the moment.”
Energy efficiency should be made a natural infrastructure priority, the UK Green Building Council said. The organisation also called for the government to act if it is it to meet former Chancellor George Osborne’s aims set out by the launch of the National Infrastructure Commission to shake “Britain out of its infrastructure inertia”.
