Government to spend extra £1bn to insulate poor UK homes

The business secretary has announced that the government will spend an extra 1 billion pounds to insulate the least energy-efficient homes in the UK.

Grant Shapps said the new Eco scheme was aimed at middle earners who do not benefit from government support to upgrade their homes.

Labour criticized it as a reheated announcement with no new resources and as far too little too late Hundreds of thousands of households could receive loft and cavity wall insulation under the scheme which will run for three years from spring.

A fifth of the funding will be allocated to the most vulnerable households.

Shapps told the media: This money will help hundreds of thousands of people who have not been able to benefit from the previous schemes. Guidance to be published on the help for households website said reducing boiler flow temperatures from 75 C to 60 C and turning down radiators in empty rooms could save a typical household 160 a year.

One of the tips, by the way, I've actually been able to use at home is called the boiler flow rate. It is usually on the boiler where you can turn the temperature down, which is often set too high at 75 degrees, for example 60 degrees. It is actually simple tips like that that we will be announcing and there is an 18 m campaign to back that as well. So lots of practical help physically improving people's homes and also ways to make sure people are able to save themselves money by being more efficient in the homes. A previous attempt to implement such a campaign was blocked by Liz Truss s administration over concerns that it was too nanny state. The government has set an ambition of reducing energy use by 15% by 2030 as it battles spiking energy prices caused by Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.

But the climate change secretary Ed Miliband said: This reheated announcement with no new resources is far too little and will help only a tiny fraction of the millions of people facing a cost-of-living emergency this winter.

Up to two million homes would be insulate by Labour a year, saving pensioners and families up to 1,000 off their energy bills.

Rishi Sunak wants to crawl towards warmer homes and cheaper bills for our country. Labour will sprint for it because it is what the bills crisis demands. The funding is not nearly enough, as seven million homes in England and Wales are suffering fuel poverty and 19 million homes are badly insulated, according to Greenpeace UK energy campaigner Georgia Whitaker.

She said this is a drop in the ocean compared to what people need to stay warm and well this winter and in the winters to come.

By the end of this Parliament, at least 6 billion bn are needed for a nationwide insulation programme that will not only reduce emissions but will also reduce fuel poverty in the UK.

The sooner the government gets going, the sooner we have more affordable bills, more energy security and a more stable climate.