Labour has pledged to spend more than £2 billion a year on rolling out whole street home energy efficiency upgrade schemes, while banning poorly insulated private rented homes from being let out.
The party’s shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said a Labour government would spend £2.3 billion per annum on financial support for households and local authorities to carry out home insulation schemes.
The financial support is designed to deliver Labour’s general election manifesto pledge to bring four million homes up to Energy Performance Certificate C grade by the end of its first term in government.
Low income households will be offered grants, and councils and housing associations will be eligible for funding to upgrade their homes.
As previously announced in last year’s manifesto, owner-occupiers and landlords able to pay for works will be offered zero-interest loans to carry out upgrades.
Labour claims that the measures will save households, which benefit from the scheme, “at least” £270 per year on their domestic energy bills.
The opposition has also said that it will tighten regulation of privately rented homes by blocking the letting out of poorly insulated dwellings.
Long-Bailey said: “Our ambitious insulation plan will see the next Labour government take real action against fuel poverty, making homes cheaper to heat, improving people’s health by improving our housing, creating new jobs and reducing carbon emissions.”
The government recently announced that the number of homes set to receive solid wall insulation under its ECO 3 energy scheme, which the industry funds to the tune of £670 million per annum, will fall from 21,000 to 17,000 each year.
Welcoming Labour’s announcement as a “step towards bringing the standards of homes up to a level fit for the 21st century”, Eon chief executive Michael Lewis said: “Our view is that current proposals for ECO3 are not ambitious enough and will mean many customers miss out on such benefits, particularly when it comes to solid wall insulation and harder to treat properties.”