Is there still hope for the Green Deal?

Vern Pitt

I said in the pages of this magazine earlier this month that the Green Deal was back to square one and this month’s figures have, more or less, proved me right as retrofit work fell to its lowest level since April 2013.

The UK Green Building Council’s policy director John Alker described the figures as “feeling like Groundhog Day”. Why is that a bad thing? Well in April 2013 the industry was suffering with massive job cuts, insolvencies and uncertainty. That’s exactly where it is headed again.

Even news that the number of Green Deal plans signed in July was at a record level may be a false hope because much of this will have been influenced by councils spending their Green Deal Communities budgets and boosting the scheme’s take-up.

Is there hope for change? The government gave a clear signal of how important this agenda was in last month’s ministerial reshuffle when the post that holds responsibility for the Green Deal was downgraded from minister of state to under-secretary.

Former energy minister Greg Barker, for all his faults, was a vocal champion of the scheme and, as a minister who was close to prime minister David Cameron, he could expect a fair hearing from the treasury ministers with the keys to the coffers.

Whether Amber Rudd, his replacement, will have the same clout remains to be seen. One thing is clear - between now and the next election retrofit work looks set to bump along the bottom, without a strong white knight to save it.

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