Government wasting billions by delaying net zero standards for homes

Hundreds of thousands of extra homes are being built to lower standards but will need to be upgraded at great cost

Homes are far cheaper to make net zero from newbuild rather than retrofitting(Rui Vieira/PA) (PA Wire)

The government is creating billions of pounds in extra costs by delaying the introduction of new green rules for housing, an analysis has found.

In 2006 the last Labour government legislated for all new homes to be built for net zero carbon from 2016 – but the Conservatives scrapped the rule six months before it was due to come in.

Now the government says it intends for all new homes to be net zero ready by 2025 - and in the intervening years hundreds of thousands of new houses and flats are being built to less green standards.

Now opposition calculations suggest the decision will see homeowners spend £5 billion extra because these homes will eventually have to be upgraded – at greater expense than if they had been built to higher standard in the first place.

Lucy Powell, Labour's shadow housing secretary, said building homes today that would need to be retrofitted down the line was "insanity".

“Yet again, the Conservatives are letting developers off the hook and selling homeowners down the river, as they’ll be hit by bills, as will the Government, to retrofit their homes in a few years time," she said.

“Commitments at COP to doing something in the future are not enough; we need urgent action now. Britain should be leading this charge by requiring that all new homes be built with low carbon heating immediately.”

813,970 new homes were built from 2016-2019, according to the government's official housing statistics – with ministers pledging that the rate will increase to 300,000 a year.

According to research commissioned by the government's own Committee on Climate Change, “The costs of installing low-carbon heat as a retrofit to an existing gas heated semi-detached home is around £9,000, over three times the cost than if installed in a new build."

The analysis works on the basis that it is around £6,500 cheaper to install a heat pump in a new build than to retrofit the work.

852,360 homes expected to be built between 2022 and 2022, this difference in cost would represent a saving of £5.54bn.

But the government argues that waiting to take action could have benefits because heat pumps may get cheaper in the future.

A government spokesperson said: “This analysis is misleading. Homes built to current standards won’t need extensive retrofitting to reach net zero - and we will soon be improving them further. Homes built to the new standard are expected to produce 31 per cent less emissions.

“Thanks to our ongoing work to improve household energy efficiency we have quadrupled the number of homes reaching the higher ‘Band C’ EPC rating since 2008.”