by Mathew Beech
The Green Deal will “run out of puff and fade away” because it does not represent a good deal for consumers, according to Labour MP Alan Whitehead.
Whitehead, who sits on the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, said incentives were needed to encourage take-up in the face of household worries about being saddled with debt. However, such inducements would only temporarily hide the scheme’s flaws.
He said: “We have the cashback and that looks like it will help. However, when it runs out, the Green Deal could run out of puff and fade away.”
Guy Thompson, director at freshly launched switching site My Utility Genius, said the Green Deal was “poorly engineered” and “it is going to fail and fail manifestly”.
The criticism of the Green Deal came as energy and climate change minister Greg Barker was forced to admit “no assessments have yet been lodged”. In a Department of Energy and Climate Change webchat, he said “the Green Deal wasn’t launched six weeks ago” – claiming only the framework went live. That was despite government insistence at the time that 1 October’s “soft launch” did not represent a delay.
Barker added that “we expect the numbers of assessment to rise” when marketing begins and finance becomes available from 28 January.
Angela Knight, chief executive of Energy UK, said nobody had signed up because they had not heard of the Green Deal.
This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 23rd November 2012.
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