In response to recent announcements regarding changes to energy efficiency policies (including this DECC press release), ACE have asked DECC to answer the following questions:

1.  On the announcement of a “Stamp duty rebate” for home-movers who install efficiency measures:

• Is this really a stamp duty rebate (implying a return of money at some point after purchase for homeowners who can prove they have installed measures) or is it just a cashback by another name?  What will the delivery mechanism be?
• Does this money come out of the existing £200m cashback pot, or does it come from somewhere else?  Is this Exchequer funding?
• It is anticipated that 60,000 homes a year will be helped.  But what if a large number of homeowners opt to have more expensive measures installed?
• If the share of the £450m allocated to this scheme runs out prior to April 2017, does this mean that the scheme will be closed?

2.  Help for private landlords:

• The press release talks of a “scheme to support private landlords” and promises a share (unspecified) of £450m will be available to fund this.  However, the press release goes on to say that this scheme will  consist of “funding available through the Green Deal”.  It is therefore confusing as to whether this will be Government funding channelled through the Green Deal, or else some “tweaking” of Green Deal finance, or else some extension of the LESA scheme?
• In an article in The Sun newspaper (1st December), Nick Clegg and David Cameron refer to “cash incentives to landlords of the least energy efficient properties”; the press release meanwhile talks of “helping landlords bring their properties up to minimum standards” – the implication of both of these statements is that the funding for landlords will only be available to landlords of F and G rated properties.  Can this be clarified/confirmed?
• In the article in The Sun, Nick Clegg and David Cameron talk about the incentive being available to landlords “when they are between tenants” – will the incentive only be available during void periods?
• Government is claiming this will deliver 1.8Mt of carbon savings .  If it is geared to existing F and G-rated homes,  surely all these savings must already be built into Government carbon estimates from the time the Energy Bill 2011 made it mandatory to outlaw F & G rated properties.  Therefore there will be no new carbon saved – it will just be a sweetener for landlords to get them to obey the law.
• There are 440,000 F & G rated properties in the private rental sector. The new scheme will incentivise just 45,000 of them over three years,  e.g 10% of the total.  Can this be confirmed?

3. Spending breakdown:

•  We’re told that there will be £450m of new investment for the two new measures above.  What is the breakdown of spending as between the two measures?

4. Carbon savings and public buildings:

• What are the carbon savings associated with each of the above, and how much additional carbon saving is assumed to come from the £90m being allocated to schools, hospitals and other public buildings? What shape is deployment of this £90m – is it a grant? Or an extension of a finance mechanism (presumably Salix)?

We hope DECC will soon provide clarification on these important points.

David Cameron may not need convincing on climate change, but just how many of the new generation of Conservative MPs will share his concerns?

I can read opinion polls. Over the past year, every single one has pointed to the likelihood that, after May’s General Election, there will be more Conservative MPs than from any other political party.

I can also read the science. This shows, beyond reasonable doubt, that the threat of accelerating climate change is very real. And that it is necessary to make significant alterations to the way we do things to minimise the likely deleterious effects.

The leaders of the three main political parties, and their energy and environment spokesmen, are at one in stressing the seriousness and the urgency of adopting policies to address this threat. During the forthcoming election campaign, I can confidently predict that the only dissension between the relevant senior party figures will be regarding who would adopt the most effective policies to minimise the impact of changing our climate.

So there is no significant dispute about the importance of this matter? Is this purely a managerial issue now? My concern is not with the party leaders. It is with the followers. More precisely, it is the lack of traction the climate change issue now has among those likely to be taking their seats as Conservative MPs after May.

The Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill received Royal Assent on the 21 June 2006.

Read the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Act 2006

This Private Members’ Bill, introduced in June 2005, would require the Government to produce a fiscal and economic strategy to assist with microgeneration and energy efficiency in order to combat climate change and to alleviate fuel poverty. It would introduce both Great Britain wide and local targets for the take-up of microgeneration, and would set up a scheme which will require electricity suppliers to buy electricity produced by domestic customers by microgeneration. It will also include measures to make it easier for green energy certificates to be allocated to those producing energy by microgeneration, along with the introduction of a renewable heat obligation for suppliers of heating fuel. It is possible that HAs would become indirectly implicated in the delivery of as well as be affected by the Bill’s provisions.

Following the Second Reading, Mark Lazarowicz’s Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill entered the Committee stage on 25 January. Over three separate Committee sittings, all of the relevant clauses from the Alan Whitehead’s Management of Energy in Buildings Bill were incorporated, including clauses relating to Building Regulations compliance.

The Third Reading took place in May, after which it went to the House of Lords.

In the House of Lords, it went through the First and Second Readings and then the Committee. The Committee was held on the 14th June 2006. No amendments were set down and so the “order of commitment was discharged”.

The Bill passed the Third Reading on the 20 June 2006 and received Royal Assent on the 21 June 2006. It is now an Act of Parliament.

The Fact Sheet: Climate Change – The UK Programme, can be downloaded here.