THIS MEETING HAS HAD TO BE POSTPONED. WE’LL LET YOU KNOW IN DUE COURSE WHEN IT HAS BEEN REARRANGED.
We are holding a zoom meeting on May 25th at 3 p.m. on decarbonising housing. Speakers will include Clive Lewis MP, and Emma Taylor-Beal who works in the industry.
In an article prior to the Labour leadership’s decision to row back on its Green Prosperity Plan, MP Clive Lewis wrote of the need to ensure “local authorities have the funds to decarbonise their own areas”. This includes those with council housing, collectively owning slightly more than 1.5 million homes left in England. The Local Government Association reckons that to retro-fit and decarbonise it would cost at least £23 billion. That seems rather low because it amounts to an average of only £15,000.
In the last finalised accounts of Housing Revenue Accounts in England, collectively they only managed to spend £800 million on capital works; less than 10% of their income. This includes renewal of key housing components, as well as new buld and any retro-fitting. Non-traditional council housing stock (prefabricated) usually requires external wall insulation, better quality windows as well as a heat pump. There is no point in putting in heat pumps without dealing with heat loss. You would be lucky to do that for less than £40,000.
The Green Prosperity Plan promised £6 billion a year for 10 years for insulation. This was supposed to cover 19 million homes. Do the maths and that’s only £1,300 per property. Even this has been scaled back to £1.3 billion a year for five years; £6.5 billion, said to be for 5 million homes. Our attempt to clarify with Ed Miliband whether there was any funding available for heat pumps, was met with no response. Labour’s Warm Homes Plan is only committed to upgrading homes to EPC (Energy Perfoance Certificate) C. This cannot include decarbonisation since that would usually mean EPC A or at worst B.
There is, in addition, funding from the current government which will run to March 2028. However, the expectation that by that time there will be 600,000 heat pump installations a year is improbable. The Heat Pump Association estimates there were only 55,000 heat pumps installed in 2022. The National Audit Office recently reported
“The Boiler Upgrade Scheme funded the installation of nearly 18,900 heat pumps in England and Wales from May 2022 to December 2023. The original business case budgeted for up to 50,000 installations by this point. DESNZ (Department of Energy Security and Net Zero) underspent by £100 million in the scheme’s first year. To increase uptake, in October 2023 DESNZ increased the grant value available through the scheme to £7,500 per household, up from £5,000 for an air source heat pump and £6,000 for a ground or water source heat pump. It covers nearly 60% of the average cost of installing a heat pump, based on the average cost in 2023.”
Given that home heating accounts for 18% of carbon emissions “decarbonising housing is not an optional extra”. In his article Clive Lewis challenges Labour’s ‘fiscal rules’ which are the justification for the retreat on the GPP.
“They may well be called “rules” but they are actually political choices, constructed to project whatever the government of the day withes them to. In the last 16 years, we’ve had multiple sets of rules. By seeking to hide behind them, Labour makes the mistake of treating them like the laws of physics.
Meanwhile the actual laws of nature – those which explain how burning fossil fules disrupts our previously stable climate – are deemed optional.”
The economy and environment, says Clive, do not exist in separate spheres.
“We are only at the start of an era of unprecedented disruption and uncertainty. Ending the age of fossil fuels, supporting people through the transition, and adapting to the impacts of climate breakdown are now the primary tasks of any government. The longer we delay action, the harder it becomes, and the more people suffer.”
There are, of course, material obstacles to decarbonising housing, such as capacity in the electricity grid. For instance, Reading Council’s plans to have heat pumps in some of its houses in a particular development, had to be scaled back because the electricity grid could not accommodate them. It’s also clear that there needs to be a big increase in staff with the skills to do work on the scale that’s required.
A recent survey by the Local Government Association found that most councils pessimistic about net zero because of national approach. Nine in 10 councils do not think there is a sufficient financing plan in place to deliver net zero by 2050.
One of the benifits of decarbonisation other than cutting carbon emissions, is that it lowers the cost of heating a home; no mean factor when many tenants are not putting on their heating because they cannot afford it. Decarbonisation will not only improve the health of tenants, it will save the NHS money as a result.
So what are the questions which need to be considered for decarbonising council housing? They include
- The need for central government funding for retro-fitting and decarbonisation.
- The development of sufficient staff with the skills to do the work.
- Expansion of the capacity of the electricity grid.
- A practical plan to create the conditions for work on such a scale to take place. The market cannot provide the planning which is necessary to carry out this work.
At the same time we obviously need to discuss campaigning under a Labour government; what pressure can be brough to bear and by whom.
Come along and participate in the discussion. If you are on our email list you will automatically receive the zoom link. If not, email us and we will send it to you.
Labour Campaign for Council Housing 