The government’s failure to implement its manifesto commitment to boost spending on energy efficiency has been branded a “missed opportunity” by the chair of the House of Commons business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) committee.
Rachel Reeves sent a string of letters to BEIS ministers last week to highlight the committee’s concerns about proposals in the recently unveiled Budget on carbon, capture and storage (CCS), electric vehicles (EVs) and energy efficiency.
In a letter to energy minister Kwasi Kwarteng, Reeves expresses disappointment that chancellor Rishi Sunak’s March 11 package included no steps to introduce the £6.4 billion worth of support for improving energy efficiency in fuel poor homes and social housing pledged in the Conservative manifesto.
“Not only was this a missed opportunity to help millions of people keep warn and well in their homes, but it would have sent a clear signal to other nations attending this year’s crucial UN Climate Change Summit,” she writes, adding that the UK’s “credibility” as summit president will depend on ability to deliver world leading domestic policy in line the aims of the Paris agreement. The UK is due to host the UN COP 26 climate change summit later this year in Glasgow.
In the letter, which was sent before the most recent escalation of the coronavirus crisis, Reeves expresses “serious concerns” about current proposals to revamp building regulations with a new Future Homes Standard.
In particular, she describes as a “retrograde step” the removal of the existing benchmark on building fabric and local authorities’ powers to set higher energy efficiency standards than those mandated by building regulations.
Unless this move is reversed, Reeves warns that the installation of a PV device could enable homes that would fail the existing Part L to pass the updated fabric standard.
The letter also expresses concern that the government has been “noticeably quiet” on the extension of the Warm Homes Discount scheme, which is due to end after 2021.
In separate correspondence with Kwarteng, Reeves describes the government’s proposals to create at least two CCS clusters by 2030 as out of line with what will be needed to comply with progress to achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
She writes that the government’s goal, set out in the Budget, is in line with previous advice from the Committee on Climate Change, which was itself premised on the pre-existing target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 80 per cent of 1990 levels by the middle of the century.
Reeves also expresses disappointment that the government has not made more progress on its review of CCS investment and delivery, which it had said would be published by the end of 2019.
“Further delays to the review could inadvertently set back the delivery of this technology, making it extremely hard for developers to bring forward CCS facilities in time to satisfy the government’s deployment targets.”
A third letter to junior BEIS minister Nadhim Zahawi focuses on the Budget’s moves on EVs. This expresses disappointment with the decision to extend the Plug in Car Grant by only one year to 2022/23, which the BEIS committee chair describes as the “latest in a long series of short term and last minute extensions”, with “no visibility” on its future thereafter.
“These repeated temporary fixes have failed to provide affected businesses with any visibility of the conditions under which support for EVs will ultimately be phased out. This makes it much harder for vehicle manufacturers, charge point providers and electricity networks to anticipate and justify investment in the products, services and infrastructure which will be critical for delivery of the 2050 Net Zero target, but which themselves can take years to develop.”
On the government’s plan to bring forward the phase out of internal combustion new car sales by five years, she writes: “The government’s proposed 2035 target is a marked improvement on the existing 2040 deadline but it continues to trundle behind the live industry debate.”