The chief executive of National Energy Action has criticised the Treasury for its “domination over all departments” and claimed the UK has fallen well behind its fuel poverty targets as a result of current policy.
Jenny Saunders, who has run the charity since 2007, was speaking at the Heating & Hotwater Industry Council (HHIC) conference on 25 November and claimed that the Treasury’s intervention on spending decisions at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) had caused serious disruption.
“I think there is appetite in DECC [for energy efficiency], I think they get it. I think the problem is the domination of the Treasury over all departments and I do think there needs to be a greater challenge by ministers to the Treasury,” she said.
On the day that George Osborne delivered his Spending Review, which included cost reduction plans for the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) and the Energy Obligation Scheme (ECO), Saunders also criticised the chancellor for his involvement in departmental activities.
She continued: “We have a chancellor who is really controlling absolutely [everything], right down to micromanagement in some cases.”
Saunders went on to claim that recent policy changes and the intervention of HM Treasury in schemes had disrupted the supply chain and reduced energy efficiency installations, which she claimed was 80% less than five years ago.
She added that the UK was also in danger of missing its targets for combatting fuel poverty, which require as many fuel poor homes as is reasonably practicable achieve a minimum energy efficiency rating of Band C by 2030. Currently only 5% of the fuel poor in England live in properties which reach energy performance certificate Band C or above, with over a million of the circa 2.3 million households in fuel poverty having E, F, and G ratings. Saunders claimed the current policies and programmes are not designed to achieve this
“Knowing what we have as a target and the money available, it’s going to take us not 15 years to deliver fuel poverty target ambitions – it’s going to take 95 years at the current rate of progress,” she said.
