A coalition of charities and campaigners have demanded the chancellor funnel more funds into making Britain’s leaky housing stock energy efficient at next week’s budget to help cut bills and protect the environment.
In a letter to Jeremy Hunt, more than 20 organisations asked the government to set aside at least £6bn a year over the next decade to support an acceleration in insulating home and installations of heat pumps.
The coalition, which includes the charities National Energy Action, Age UK and Greenpeace UK, said Hunt needed to kickstart a renewed drive to improve efficiency to “insulate the whole country against energy price shocks”.
The surge in wholesale gas prices, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, has led to soaring energy bills and pushed two million more people into fuel poverty.
Campaigners said ensuring heat was not lost through poorly insulated housing would cut domestic costs and reduce emissions. Housing is directly responsible for about 14% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
In the letter, seen by the Guardian, the groups said about 7 million UK households were experiencing “preventable fuel poverty” and that reducing the reliance on gas could help drive down inflation.
In his autumn statement in November, Hunt pledged to spend £6.6bn during this parliament on energy efficiency, and announced a further £6bn of funding from 2025, “doubling annual investment”.
However, the groups called on the government to commit to spending at least £6bn annually to help upgrade homes, and improve training and supply chains to support the rollout of heat pumps. They want the chancellor to set aside in next week’s budget an initial £5bn for home insulation and £3bn for the installation of heat pumps.
A report by a House of Lords committee last month found a £450m boiler upgrade scheme for England and Wales was failing to deliver.
Areeba Hamid, the joint executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “This country is on its knees. High inflation, a shrinking economy and an energy crisis that has forced a quarter of all households into fuel poverty.
“Insulation and heat pumps could be the silver bullet the government so desperately needs right now, but only if the chancellor delivers the investment required to get our homes off gas for good.
“This isn’t just about insulating homes, but by doing so, the government will also insulate the whole country against energy price shocks that have rocked the economy like the one we’re experiencing now.”
Recent research by the thinktank Cambridge Econometrics found adopting energy -efficiency measures and low-carbon household heating could lead to a £6.8bn increase in gross domestic product by 2030.
The government is also under pressure to improve the quality of housing after the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who was killed by mould in a social housing flat in Rochdale in 2020.
Campaigners have called for private housing landlords to be held to new energy efficiency standards for social housing brought in after the toddler’s death. “Awaab’s law” will set deadlines for social landlords in England and Wales to tackle reported hazards.
A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “We’ll continue to support households even as the milder weather kicks in, with the energy price guarantee set to save the average household £1,000 up to June. At the same time, we’re spending billions to boost the energy efficiency of homes – which has seen 145,000 households move out of fuel poverty.”
