As the Guardian's morning comment newsletter says in its introduction this morning:
Houses in the UK are some of the oldest and least energy efficient in Europe. A new report by Friends of the Earth and the Institute of Health Equity found that 9.6m households are living in cold, poorly insulated homes. These households also have incomes below the minimum for a decent standard of living, meaning that they cannot afford to install double glazing or insulation, for example, to make their homes warmer. The analysis comes just weeks after the Labour party U-turned on a key climate proposal, which included a pledge to insulate millions of homes. Meanwhile, over the last 13 years the government has reversed plenty of policies designed to tackle the insulation problem in the UK.
It's now more than fifteen years since I co-authored the first Green New Deal report. In that report, we called for the release of a 'carbon army' of well-trained people who could insulate Britain, install solar power and build the transmission networks for a new economy. There would be long-term employment on offer as a result. The UK would go green. And energy poverty would be tackled. It was an all-round win.
It has not happened.
Labour has now turned its back on the idea.
But we need this solution more than ever.
And it could be done. The Taxing Wealth Report 2024 shows that the funding is available. All that is lacking is the will.
Rather than tackle gross tax, income and wealth inequality in the UK, both our leading political parties would rather balance the government's books, subject us to the desires of the City of London and maintain the existing hierarchies of financial power within our society, which leave millions in poverty whilst denying us a future.
Why do they do that? Because they crave to be part of the financial power elite, and that elite knows that and bribes them with its inducements as a result.
I would expect this of Tories.
But we have to conclude that Labour has now been totally corrupted.
That is what is frightening about where we are. Morals, ethics, principles and values have left Labour. All that is left is a vacuum desperately seeking power.
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What I can never understand is why there is no legal requirement for a purchaser to bring a property up to a particular energy efficiency standard when they buy it.
There could be a list of jobs with prices prepared before sale and the purchaser would have to deposit the cost with (say) the local authority at the point of purchase who would then use the money to pay the invoices for work done.
This could be in lieu of Stamp Duty
Here in France the seller provides a full list of electric, plumbing, overall condition etc. Plus an energy index rating. This often affects the value of the house.
Some items must be renewed or replaced within one year of purchase or risk a fine.
John
It’s called ‘caveat emptor’ and is based on letting the current owner sell to unsuspecting buyers – a rule no doubt invented by the rich in this country who were the first owners of property.
To me it makes all sellers ‘virtuous’ and places all the risk on the buyer. It’s good old fashioned class bias. Even developers of new property behave like it now.
What else would you expect from a medieval fiefdom-dump like Britain?
C02 emissions are a global, social problem. Making the solution individual is also the problem. See Richard’s point about what people can or cannot pay for individually. Making something a legal requirement seems a cruel way to address a problem we all face, and one whose cost should be borne collectively not individually. What happens in France also sounds cruel. How about we limit everyone’s gas/electric use to the national average, rather than how much you can buy? People who can hardly afford to heat their homes are not the problem, so why make them four the bill?
What happens if you have a large family but only one name on the bill
How does that work?
Solar power in the UK is at an all time high. The difficulty with further expansion is storing the excess and that is exceedingly expensive. If it was made cheaper to charge your car or wash your clothes while the sun was shining then it would make a difference but that would involve using prices which is a system politicians hate as it puts markets in charge
Agreed. Insulate what we can now, build new housing to more exacting standards.
On a separate but related note, energy prices are are sharply lower in recent weeks. Natural Gas in the US (Henry Hub) is a 25 year lows (yes, really). Wholesale European Gas and electricity prices are at pre-Ukraine War levels….. but my bill is still 50% higher that it was a year ago (a price fixed “pre-war).
The “Price Cap” was originally an attempt to stop companies gouging folk who did not shop around – ie. a “backstop”. It is now the default rate….. we are ALL being gouged!
Market failure if ever there was one.
Totally agree
Energy and food prices are definitely ‘interesting’. Wholesale gas and electricity prices are lower now than three years ago. Europe not only that it hadn’t ended up with shortages of certain foodstuffs as predicted when Russia attacked Ukraine, but there are surpluses at the market due to Ukraine exporting more to Europe and less to the rest of the world, yet the food inflation is still high. Someone is raking it in and politics is just standing aside and watching it.
The energy price cap has fallen; but it will go up again, because we are tumbleweed blown by global market prices, paying ridiculous prices for our own domestically produced energy, when the costs have not changed; so that the easy, rip-off profits from production can be siphoned off to corporate interests, and the consumer pay over-charged monopoly prices for their energy.
The explanation by the Government is standard neoliberalism – ‘Markets’. That is it. One word; utterly meaningless, but a word with its political root in one single word: scam.
@ John S Warren
“a word with its political root in one single word: scam.”
This part sentence made me think that at root much of our political thinking revolves around protesting about “scams” loosely defined. Richard’s blog certainly revolves a great deal around pointing out to us these “scams.” Indeed a big scam this week has been Keir Starmer disgracefully manipulating Parliamentary convention to hide his Islamophobia. It’s not his only one of course there’s a whole string of broken pledges to hide his true beliefs when contesting the party leadership and of course telling us the government operates on a credit card and in consequence tackling climate change must be put on the “back burner” (sic) both of which are huge scams. Indeed to me it wouldn’t be unfair to call him Keir Scammer so appalling is his deceptiveness!
All this said it would seem to me the country needs at least a pressure group called “Anti-Scam” and hopefully one that could result in a political party of the same name. Of course the basis (rules) on which such a party would be established would need careful consideration and certainly such consideration a good issue for this blog.
I think the Friends of the Earth and the Institute of Health Equity report has missed an important point.
They state that the issue is that the low income of the 9.6 million households with poor housing means they cannot afford to install the needed improvements. It rather misses the point that a very large proportion of those houses will be rented. Even if the occupiers could afford the necessary work they would be stupid to do so as they would merely be improving the landlord’s peroperty with no guarantee that they would will be in occupation the next year to enjoy their ‘investment’. Allowing landlords of homes to get away with poor standards is a very large part of the problem.
It is quite clear that both Tory and Labour leadership are hiding the truth of the climate crisis. Whilst the majority of scientists all agree that with the continuing rise of cco2, methane, and other greenhouse gases, climate heating is now on an exponential increase and that nothing except an immediate reduction of fossil fuel use will save us from first increasing extreme weather “events” ie drought, fires, floods tornados, etc the food shortage then social and economic breakdown then final extinction within 10 – 20 years. This truth is being deliberately concealed from the public by our rulers and potential rulers to prop up our entirely corrupted suicidal capitalist system. People who point out these facts such as Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain, Just Stop Oil, and even Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are ridiculed and marginalised by our media and political class. Any form of protest is now being completely banned so no wonder we are moving towards fascism at an alarming rate as well.
I agree that Labour has been corrupted.
When you think of the money printing that could be done at low cost (with tax to claw back) and they seem to accept that the private sector gets involved and will take a cut of EVERYTHING – well isn’t that just what privatisation has done – created a new mouth to feed – one that gets fed first and disproportionately higher than everyone else too?
The caving in of Labour to this dogma is unforgivable and anyone who thinks that Labour are even just being clever to get into power can only be very comfortable people themselves not in any desperate need for change.
The thing is – and as has been discussed here – this ‘comfortable’ group are next in line to be pauperised by this state sponsored system of daylight robbery we live under.
We effectively live in a one-party state!
As with energy, so with food. Some Tories are in favour of getting rid of food production in the UK ad importing all our food from more efficient producers. Some farmers may survive, by producing high-quality food for the affluent, but most people will be fed on low quality imported food. I think this attitude should be called out and resisted very strongly.
Welcome to neo-liberal UK, where the major parties have been captured by those that want to keep the neo-liberal show on the road. The UK where debate on this subject (ditto gaza etc etc) is stifled and the concerns of even “august bodies” such as the CCC (Committee on Climate Chaneg) are ignored. Supporting insulation programmes for citizens? You have got to be joking!!
Us lot? we are neo-liberal fodder, is all. Powerless, even voting (as some on this blog have noted) is pointless given the two main parties have no discernable policy differences. As I noted in another blog, part of the answer could be rolling demos in front of MPs homes. Barrage them with letters etc etc. make their lives miserable. They deserve it. In the case of LINO, MPs are frightened that they will be deselected by Starmers stalinist party machine. As for violence – Owen Jones hit the nail on the head – much of the violence is right wing ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMrUN-U5c1k ) whilst much of the video covers Gaza, the overall point is that most of the UK body politic is wholly out of touch with the concerns and needs of UK citizens.
I’m not going to give LINO the benefit of the doubt – they want to be corrupted – they have seen the riches that Bliar and Mandelson have made post-office and want they same. LINO, corrupt & rapacious with Starmer a wannabe mini-me Bliar.
As noted elsewhere, I will be voting for Just Stop Oil. If nothing else, the election will raise their profile & make it difficult for the police to prevent them campaiging.
Back in the 1970s, the title of my dissertation, for my first degree, was: ‘Conservation of Domestic Heating’, from which I discovered the UK had the worst insulation standards amongst the whole of Europe, and about which our cheapskate, myopic, UK has maintained its European lead ever since.
‘Cheapskate’ is how I’ve always thought of the ethic that pervades the UK Treasury and, I suppose, is a characteristic of neoliberalism. Is it a suitable epithet for Rachel Reeves perhaps?
Almost certainly
I agree with your post.
What concerns me about insulating houses is that it is simply not economic. Average house price is around £290k. Many houses, of those on low incomes, will be lower than this (£290k is an average after all). The cost of properly insulating properties could be a very substantial proportion of their price and not economic. The Guardian article makes clear that many of the properties are old.
I would suggest that, rather than trying to be upgraded, it is more sensible to replace poor quality old housing. This highlights, even more, the chronic lack of house building. And of course it would require considerable public investment because poorer households could not afford a rebuild. But a call to simply insulate homes is not enough.
Tim
There are really big issues with carbon release from old property demolition and embedding in new ones as well
I am doing a lot of work on this issue over the next year with Copenhagen Business School
Richard
Most interesting – ref carbon release.
Related: One area that will need addressing is Ukraine and re-build. I have a business proposal to use the 5 megatonnes of surplus straw (that Ukraine produces each year) to use with wood frame construction. High thermal performance, quasi fireproof (the straw is compressed and has a cement cladding = little oxygen to feed a fire) and cheap as chips. Not saying the Uk should go this route. Most promising route for thermal performance on existing buildings: vacuum panels using aerogels – thin but ultra high performance. not cheap mind. No easy solutions.
This book is interesting to me:
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2546-a-planet-to-win
I don’t know if anyone else has read it but the phrase “green new” is getting dated in my view, and we need to go back to “green old” and look at taking the prescriptions offered to us in 2006 by the Grantham Research Institute.