Recommendation 25

HM Government · verbatim extract Rejected

The Green Homes Grant voucher scheme has faced delivery challenges. Due to these ongoing issues, the Government made the decision to close the scheme for new application on 31 March 2021. The Government continues to be committed to honour all applications, and the £320 million provided at the 2020 Spending Review is expected to mean the voucher scheme will upgrade up to 77,000 homes and support 8,700 jobs during 2021/22. Any remaining funding will be reallocated to other schemes. 26. The Government has promised £2.9 billion for support for public sector decarbonisation projects over the five years to 2025. We consider that there is an urgent need for the front-loading of programme expenditure, and we recommend that as part of the programme the Government should support the capital cost of upgrading the energy efficiency of schools and hospitals. Providing energy efficiency upgrades to the UK ’s social housing stock should also be prioritised. This should be assessed periodically by the National Audit Office as part of its regular work programme. (Paragraph 175 of the EAC report) The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and Green Homes Grant Local Authority Delivery scheme are on track to have met or exceeded their original funding by the end of 2021/22. The Government has now announced all the successful projects and local authorities for this year’s funding, which are estimated to be supporting 50,000 jobs and will save 3.5Mt of carbon emissions. Acknowledging the success of the local authority led schemes to date, the Government is further supporting the industry by providing an additional £300 million in 2021/22 for local authorities to use to tackle draughty and poorly insulated homes. This will target the additional funding at the most effective projects and at those households that most need support with their energy bills. This will mean, in total, £1.3 billion will be spent on improving energy efficiency in 2021/22 through the four schemes, after the successful delivery of £1.2 billion this year. This is significantly above the £1.28 billion originally included in the 2019 manifesto over this period. The Government continues to be committed to supporting building decarbonisation, as evidenced by the scale of this investment, other funding mechanisms such as the Energy Companies Obligation (‘ECO’) which will increase to £1 billion per annum in 2022 from £640 million per annum at present. Further spending announcement will be made at the next Spending Review.