Insulation is crucial to lowering people’s energy bills. Photo: Energise Sussex Coast

Don’t slash spending on the Warm Homes Plan

Local community energy group Energise Sussex Coast (ESC) has joined over 50 charities, green campaign groups and housing organisations in an open letter to Treasury. ESC’s Gabriel Carlyle reports.

Local community benefit cooperative Energise Sussex Coast (ESC) has joined over 50 charities and advocacy organisations – including Age UK, Citizen’s Advice and the National Trust – in writing to Darren Jones MP, the chief secretary of the Treasury, urging the UK government ‘to fulfil its manifesto pledge to invest £13.2bn in the Warm Homes Plan and save families hundreds of pounds on their energy bills’.

An extract from the 2024 Labour manifesto

£6.6 billion

In its 2024 manifesto Labour pledged to ‘invest an extra £6.6 billion over the next Parliament’ in household energy efficiency and low-carbon heating (including insulation, domestic solar panels and heat pumps) doubling the planned investment in such measures under the previous Conservative government.

However, recent reports in the Financial Times and elsewhere, suggest that this commitment is now at risk in the forthcoming Spending Review on 11 June – and may even be halved, leaving funding no higher than was pledged under the Tories.

The letter to Darren Jones notes that ‘exposure to high gas prices on the international market continues to hurt UK households, with high heating bills having a devastating impact on families’ – and that 6.5 million households are still in fuel poverty.

2.9 million

Following-through on the manifesto commitment to spend £13.2 bn on the Plan, the letter notes, could reduce the energy bills of 2.9 million households by £200 a year. It would also add an estimated 0.8% to the UK’s GDP this parliament – delivering a similar level of annual growth per pound spent to London’s £19bn Elizabeth Line, but with benefits distributed across the UK.

By contrast, slashing spending for the Warm Homes Plan, the letter notes, would ‘keep millions of households trapped on costly gas’, and make it very difficult, if not impossible, for the UK to meet its obligations to end fuel poverty and tackle climate change.

Many of the households that would benefit under the Plan – or not benefit, if the manifesto pledge is jettisoned – are likely to be vulnerable. Indeed, half of the households whose homes were insulated by the most recent government scheme contained someone with a disability and nearly a third contained someone aged 65 or over.

Lower bills for good

James Dyson, a senior researcher for E3G, a green thinktank that helped organise the letter, told the Guardian: ‘Reinstating winter fuel payments means nothing if the government doesn’t keep its promise to fix cold, leaky homes. It’s like pouring water into a sieve.’

Insulating homes is a permanent solution to help end fuel poverty, cut excess winter deaths and NHS costs, and reduce carbon emissions.

The government must now follow-through on its manifesto commitment to spend £13.2 billion on the Warm Homes Plan, so that millions can have their bills lowered – and their wellbeing improved – for good.

Take action! You can find a template email to send to Hastings’ MP, urging her to take action to protect the funding of the Warm Homes Plan here.

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