Conservative decision to axe ‘zero carbon homes’ plan added £500m onto cost of energy bills, Labour says

‘Families are paying for the failure of the government to plan ahead,’ says Lucy Powell

(Getty Images)

The Conservative decision to axe the zero carbon homes plan has added £500m on to the cost of consumers’ energy bills over the last five years, according to a Labour analysis.

Forcing developers to build zero carbon homes within a decade, the policy was first unveiled by the former prime minister Gordon Brown in 2006 and would have affected over 800,000 homes built since 2016.

Just months before it was set to be implemented, however, the policy was scrapped by David Cameron’s Conservative government, undermining the UK’s current efforts to reach its climate targets.

Highlighting a report last year from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, Labour said if the policy had not been cancelled families in newly built homes would be saving more than £200 per year on energy bills.

Using government statistics, Labour’s own analysis claims that over the last five years, families living in one the new homes built since 2016 have been hit by £500 million extra in energy costs — compared to a net zero home.

Previous figures demonstrated that around 800,000 homes could have been built to a lower emissions standards if Mr Brown’s decade-old policy had not be scrapped in July 2015.

As wholesale energy prices across the world soar, and consumers face a considerable spike in bills, the shadow housing secretary Lucy Powell said: “Families are paying for the failure of the government to plan ahead”.

“Soaring energy prices are making it harder for families to make ends meet but it didn’t have to be this way,” she added.

“Labour’s zero carbon homes plan would have meant lower bills for millions of people, and less demand on our creaking energy infrastructure. Instead we have a Conservative cost-of-living crunch making it harder for families to make ends meet.”

It comes after Sir Keir Starmer and the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, used the party’s annual conference in Brighton to commit to investing £28 billion a year in climate measures, including home insulation.

A Government spokesperson said: “This analysis misunderstands how the zero carbon homes policy worked. As it involved carbon offsetting rather than reducing energy consumption, it would have forced up the cost of buying new homes, rather than reducing bills.

“By delivering carbon reductions through the fabric and building services in a home, rather than relying on wider carbon offsetting, the future homes standard ensures new homes will have a smaller carbon footprint than any previous government policy.”

Just next month the UK will host the UN climate change summit – Cop26 – in Glasgow, but on Thursday the US climate envoy John Kerry conceded the event will likely end without nations agreeing to the carbon emissions cuts needed to stave off the devastating levels of climate change.