Recommendation 7

Although the Strategy relies on private investment, government does not have a good track record of providing investor confidence in climate policy.18 For example, government set out plans for zero carbon homes in 2006, but cancelled these in 2015.19 Even today, on the back of Net Zero and COP 26 commitments, the UK continues to build over 200,000 new homes per year, the overwhelming majority use fossil fuel heating systems and traditional building methods with insufficient insulation. This is incoherent. The previous Committee reported in 2017 that the decision to cancel support for the construction of the UK’s first large-scale carbon capture and storage project had a negative impact on investor confidence, and this decision was at the time the latest in a series of decisions on energy 8 Department for Transport, Decarbonising Transport: A Better, Greener Britain, July 2021; Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy, March 2021 9 Net Zero Strategy, Chapter 2, page 77, Figure 13; Committee on Climate Change, Sixth Carbon Budget: The UK’s path to Net Zero, December 2020 10 Net Zero Strategy, chapter 2, pages 70–73 11 Net Zero Strategy, chapter 1, page 42, paras 8–9; page 43, para 12; page 44, paras 17–18 12 Net Zero Strategy, chapter 1, page 43, para 15; page 49, paras 19, 22; chapter 3, page 143 13 Net Zero Strategy, chapter 4, page 254, para 30 14 Net Zero Strategy, page 49 para 19 15 Net Zero Strategy, page 49 para 22 16 Q 24; Net Zero Strategy, page 145 para 24 17 Q 27 18 Qq 99–101; Net Zero Strategy, page 49 para 19 19 Q 25, 100; House of Commons Library, Zero Carbon Homes, Number 6678, 27 April 2016 Achieving Net Zero: Follow up 11 policies that had potentially impacted investor confidence.20 Most recently, we reported that the Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme damaged investor confidence by being cancelled at short notice and when it was only partially complete: government announced this Scheme in July 2020 and