What is really popular across the UK but some say is boring, Mr Chancellor?
Energy efficiency, Chancellor! A green recovery is simply impossible without it and voters want it! Tackling the UK’s unnecessarily leaky housing must be at the heart of the Chancellor’s stimulus plan to recover from Covid-19.
The evidence is clear in the EEIG’s new report – Rebuilding for Resilience – and details how a programme to upgrade the nation’s homes would create 50,000 jobs in just two years, and 150,000 by 2030. It would also save £7.5 billion from national energy costs, equivalent to £270 per home per year.
Areas with the highest potential for upgrading homes are closely linked to those seeing an increase in unemployment during the current crisis. Upgrading the nation’s homes can start right away and continue for a generation, locking in good jobs for thousands of Brits.
The construction sector, a bellwether for the UK economy, has been particularly hard hit by the current crisis. Kicking off an ambitious home upgrades programme would directly stimulate the industry, bringing at least £3.5bn in Gross Value Added (GVA) to the sector each year.
An EE programme would deliver £1.25 of tax revenue for every £1 of public money invested and drive a total of £6.2 billion investment over the next two years in our homes, schools and hospitals.
Sarah Kostense-Winterton, Chair of the EEIG and MIMA’s Executive Director, said:
“Our country is in dire need of the stimulus green recovery can deliver with sustained and immediate economic, climate and health benefits and levelling up opportunity in areas that need it most by bringing back jobs and investment, whilst refilling the empty public purse.”
“If the government is going to live up to promises to build back better or “build, build, build” then it must bring in policies to revolutionise the quality of British homes and not sidestep manifesto commitments.”
“As an industry, we stand ready and able to deliver. Our message to the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak is - surely there could be no better time to future-proof our homes whilst providing buoyancy to our drained economy?”
