Insulate Britain protestors have been blocking motorways and Dover port in the last couple of weeks to call attention to their demands for the Government to insulate all British homes by 2030.
TLDR News takes a factual look at Insulate Britain’s claims, their demands and current Government action on home insulation.
A report from the House of Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee in 2019 found that 14.6% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the running of houses, and that 2.5 million families suffer from poor housing conditions and fuel poverty.
Based on the Energy Performance Certificate measure currently only 10% of UK houses are Grade C or above. The Government’s declared aim is to get all homes to Grade C or above by 2030.
The Government’s main programme to achieve this target is the Energy Company Obligation that requires energy companies to give grants to poorer customers to help them insulate their homes.
This scheme is falling a long way short from meeting the Government’s target that would require a million houses a year to be insulated. In 2018 only around 110,000 homes were insulated under the Energy Company Obligation.
Insulate Britain have two demands of the Government…
- That the UK Government immediately promises to fully fund and take responsibility for the insulation of all social housing in Britain by 2025.
- That the UK Government immediately promises to produce within 4 months a legally binding national plan to fully fund and take responsibility for the full low-energy and low-carbon whole-house retrofit with no externalised costs, of all homes in Britain by 2030.
There is currently a very large gap between these demands and the Government’s targets, actions and achievements to date.