Plan to make landlords improve draughtiest homes and boost energy efficiency for hundreds of thousands of tenants lies in tatters, say critics
Landlords must raise their homes’ energy efficiency to at least Band E. Photograph: Alamy
Tenants face missing out on energy bill savings after the government caved in to landlords’ demands by lowering a cap on the costs they face to upgrade Britain’s draughtiest homes.
Landlords must improve the energy efficiency of F- and G-rated homes from next April under new regulations designed to protect vulnerable tenants and cut carbon emissions.
But on Tuesday the government said the costs of the upgrade would be capped at £2,500, half what officials had originally told buy-to-let landlords to expect. The total energy bill savings is put at £337m less as a result.
The government’s own assessment warned that the lower cap means only 139,200 households in England and Wales will benefit from better insulation by April 2020. That is 121,000 fewer than if the cap was at £5,000.
Campaigners and industry groups said the change left ministers’ ambitions of tackling fuel poverty in tatters.
“This could leave a gaping hole in the government’s plans to meet its own fuel poverty targets,” said Richard Twinn, policy adviser at the UK Green Building Council.
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