Credit: iStock – Csturti
At its annual conference in Birmingham last month, the Conservative Party pledged to scrap the Future Homes Standard (FHS).
It also announced plans to ‘ditch’ the FHS update of Building Regulations, which is due to come into force in 2028 and which the Conservatives described as ‘unnecessary net zero housing red tape’.
The FHS will make solar panels and low carbon heating systems mandatory in new homes, but the Conservatives claim scrapping it and a number of other measures, in a ‘bonfire’ of regulations, would cut £50,000 off the price of a typical new home.
The party also reiterated that it would reverse the Climate Change Act.
Meanwhile, Labour has said it will devolve the Warm Homes Plan (WHP) to mayors and local authorities.
In her first keynote speech at the party’s annual conference in September, Miatta Fahnbulleh, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, said the government will devolve the WHP’s Great Homes Upgrade to mayors and elected local bodies.
The Green Party’s annual conference took place in Brighton last month, when it voted to drop its long-standing opposition to nuclear power and electricity generated from waste incinerators.
Industry bodies have warned that the proposal to scrap the FHS would undermine investor confidence in the UK.
Charlotte Lee, CEO of the Heat Pump Association UK, said: ‘[The FHS] is a policy that has received cross-party support since it was launched under the last Conservative government in 2019. Any wavering from that consensus will undermine industry confidence and investment in Britain.’
