UK insulation scheme would take 300 years to meet its own targets, say critics
The government’s home insulation scheme would take 190 years to upgrade the energy efficiency of the UK’s draughty housing stock, and 300 years to meet the government’s own targets to reduce fuel poverty, according to industry calculations.
Critics of the Great British Insulation Scheme, which aims to insulate 300,000 homes a year over the next three years, have raised concerns that the plan does not go far enough to reach the 19m UK homes that need better insulation.
The Labour party added that it would fail to address the government’s “disastrous record on heating our homes”: the rate of energy efficiency upgrades is 20 times lower than under the last Labour government.
The UK Business Council for Sustainable Development has calculated that the pace of the new scheme, announced as part of a wide-ranging energy security strategy last week, would take almost 200 years to reach the homes that need upgrades.
The scheme would take another 100 years to meet the government’s own targets for improving the home energy efficiency of households living in fuel poverty in England alone, according to fuel poverty charity National Energy Action.
“We simply don’t have that long to act,” said Jason Longhurst, chair of the UK Business Council for Sustainable Development.
Matt Copeland, head of policy at National Energy Action, said progress on energy efficiency in the UK had “been far too slow for a decade”, and the new scheme was “not well targeted at fuel-poor households, who need the most support with their bills”.
He added: “Our own analysis from the most recent set of fuel poverty statistics for England found that it will now take approximately 300 years for the government to hit its statutory target for all fuel-poor homes to reach EPC C
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