The Chancellor Gordon Brown announced a raft of green initiatives in his 2006 Budget, including more money to be spent on low carbon energy sources, subsidised home insulation and an increase in the Climate Change Levy.

Brown stressed the need to tackle climate change with the introduction of an additional £50 million to fund microgeneration and promised a further £50 million to fit schools and hospitals with solar panels and wind turbines.

Michael Ankers, chief executive of the Construction Products Association, welcomed these initiatives but said: "These are fairly modest measures given the scale of what needs to be achieved."

Ankers called for a clear long-term strategy to make the existing building stock more energy efficient, starting with incentives to encourage householders to upgrade their heating boilers.

A new National Institute of Energy Technology will be created in partnership with oil and energy companies to provide £1 billion of research into low carbon energy sources.

Support for PFI schemes was reinforced, with a £26 billion in contracts announced. This will seen as a benefit to large m&e contractors involved in such projects but offers little to small and medium sized firms.

Source

Electrical and Mechanical Contractor