Green Deal
flop ‘should be wake-up 
call says
Opposition

The latest figures for the Green Deal show that while 58,124 households have been assessed for energy efficiency measures, just 419 families have so far decided to go ahead with the scheme.

Only one household has had energy saving technology installed, and 132 households have signed on the dotted line for the deal.

Under the green deal scheme, providers meet the up-front costs of installing measures ranging from insulation to new boilers, with the money paid back from savings on energy bills.

Shadow Climate Change Minister Luciana Berger said: “The Green Deal was billed as the biggest home improvements programme since the Second World War, but these figures show the scheme is still struggling to get off the ground.

“The fact that over 99 per cent of people who had a Green Deal assessment didn’t want to take out a package should be a wake-up call for the Government.”

She said it was not good enough for Ministers to “shrug their shoulders and dismiss this as a slow start “when thousands of workers in the insulation industry had lost their jobs following changes to support for energy efficiency measures.

“Labour has been warning for months that sky high interest rates, penalty payments and hidden charges would put people off.”

But Greg Barker, Minister for Energy and Climate Change, said: “The coalition Government is committed to helping hard-working families with the cost of living.

“The Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation is providing consumers with a new range of choices and opportunities to keep their homes warm, cut energy waste and importantly keep energy bills down.

“This ambitious long-term programme is still in its initial months, but over 58,000 green deal assessments shows genuine consumer interest and we expect continued steady growth as we go into the winter.”

Ministers must be realistic: Page 13.