Publication of the government’s Warm Homes Plan (WHP) has been postponed amid reports that Whitehall departments are at loggerheads over key features of the initiative.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ summer Spending Review allocated £13.2bn to the plan to upgrade five million homes during the current parliament, and its launch date had been pencilled in for 22 October.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) pledged to publish the WHP in October, and this was confirmed by energy consumers minister Martin McCluskey at a Labour Party conference fringe event in September. However, during DESNZ ministers question time on 14 October, McCluskey said the plan would now be rolled out ‘before the end of the year’.
Industry groups had already received a message from DESNZ that the WHP’s publication was to be pushed back, potentially to early December, after the Budget on 26 November.
The postponement follows reports that other government departments have been pushing back on proposals in the WHP to improve energy efficiency standards in private rented housing and remove policy levies from the electricity bills of heat pump users. It also follows McCluskey’s replacement, in September, of Miatta Fahnbulleh, who had overseen the development of the WHP since her appointment as energy consumers minister last year.
The delay to the WHP also leaves DESNZ with a headache about how it will address emissions from home heating in its next Carbon Budget Delivery Plan, which the government must publish before the end of October.
Responding to the delay, Jennifer Humphries, director of clean tech and climate at consultancy Seahorse Environmental, said: ‘The government’s decision to further delay the Warm Homes Plan is disappointing.
‘The government needs to deliver a clear, consistent strategy for lowering energy bills while achieving its climate ambitions.’
