UK must spend on home insulation and heat pumps, ministers told
The UK government must urgently bring forward billions of pounds in pledged spending on insulation and heat pumps, and reinstate the universal credit uplift to help poor households cope with soaring energy and food prices, civil society groups have told ministers.
Vulnerable households are already facing stark choices between heating and eating, with hardship set to become even worse before next winter as rises in the cost of living bite, fuelled by the war in Ukraine.
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Save the Children and Age UK are among 33 civil society groups that have written to the prime minister, Boris Johnson, the chancellor of the exchequer, Rishi Sunak, and the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, to call for £3.6bn for insulation grants to all households, and an extra £4bn by 2025 to install heat pumps in place of gas boilers.
The letter, seen by the Guardian, also called for benefits to be increased in line with April’s inflation rate, rather than the lower 3.1% planned, and for the £20 uplift in universal credit that was part of the Covid-19 response to be restored.
The government promised in its 2019 election manifesto to spend more than £9bn on insulation and energy efficiency for British homes. Ministers are understood to be finalising plans over the coming days for a new energy security strategy that will boost renewables such as wind and solar power, and to pump more oil and gas from the North Sea, while the chancellor will unveil the spring statement, or “mini budget”, next Wednesday.
But climate and poverty campaigners are concerned that measures that could provide rapid relief to poorer households, such as home insulation, will be sidelined as debate within government rages over projects such as fracking
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