Green Homes Grant scrapped

The government is to scrap the Green Homes Grant, which was launched last year with the aim of helping householders to insulate their homes.

The scheme has reached only 10% of the 600,000 homes that were supposed to be improved under the scheme.

The £300m that was set aside for the Green Homes Grant will now be dedicated to local authority programmes.

The Green Homes Grant was launched in September last year and had been due to run until 31 March 2021, before being extended to March 2022 after problems with the administration of the scheme. But it is now expected to end on its original March 2021 deadline.

Last week, a group of MPs in the Environmental Audit Committee criticised the government’s “stop-start” policies and intermittent funding, claiming it had resulted in a “dearth of installers”.

In a report, the MPs criticised the implementation of the Green Homes Grant but recommended it be “urgently overhauled”.

Commenting on the news that the scheme would be scrapped, Brian Berry, chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders (FMB), said: “The misguided scrapping of the Green Homes Grant scheme sends entirely the wrong message to consumers and builders, and will harm the UK’s desire to be seen as a global leader in tackling climate change.’

“Flaws with the scheme should have been addressed, in consultation with industry, with a commitment to training. Instead we have another example of a stop-go green initiative that undermines, rather than creates, certainly for both the public and installers.”