First word

If the Tories do win the next general election, I am sure there will be many things that Labour ministers will look back on with regret. But very high up that list should be the failure to eliminate fuel poverty. Despite countless pledges from ministers, the harsh reality is that there will probably be more people living in fuel poverty in 2010 than the approximately 5.5 million households there were in 1997. And for a Labour government, that’s one hell of an indictment.

To be fair, there’s still a lively debate about how best to define fuel poverty (in terms of the percentage of income spent on energy services), and the government has certainly set the bar pretty high. It has relied on a host of different schemes since 1997, working with the energy suppliers, local authorities, and specialist energy efficiency organisations. But the net outcome is universally recognised to be pretty disappointing.

To start with, I just don’t think there was any real understanding of just how big a task this was going to be. When I was appointed chair of the Sustainable Development Commission in July 2000, I remember being lectured by a minister in what is now the Communities and Local Government department that the biggest priority was new housing (especially affordable homes), and that addressing the challenge of existing housing stock would simply have to wait.

But progress hasn’t been brilliant, even on the new homes front. In June this year, as part of Gordon Brown’s Building Britain’s future initiative, up to £1.5 billion has had to be earmarked for the creation of 20,000 affordable homes to help make up the deficit. Happily, ministers now accept that the priority has to be existing stock if we really want to make an impact both on emissions of greenhouse gases and directly improving people’s quality of life. The decent homes commitment - to ensure that all accommodation is warm, weather-proof and has reasonable facilities by the end of 2010 - captures the right ambition level, but delivery has been very patchy indeed.

Essentially, it’s going to require a completely different quality of leadership both to meet the standards set down in the code for sustainable homes (for new build) and to accelerate progress on existing housing stock. Housing associations are now absolutely in the frontline when it comes to responding to that challenge - and, happily, there are already many inspiring examples of progress being made on both fronts.

But funding remains a massive problem. The government has confirmed there will be no additional funding to help social landlords achieve level 4 of the code for sustainable homes, which becomes mandatory in 2010. And it is still very difficult to put the right financing deals in place to take on more ambitious retrofit schemes, especially because the real economies of scale only kick in with schemes involving whole streets (or even whole communities) rather than single dwellings.

And there’s one more variable that has to be factored in as well as technology and finance - and that’s human behaviour. Every social landlord has its own horror stories of houses brilliantly retrofitted to reduce energy consumption, only to be thwarted by tenants jacking up the thermostat in the depths of winter so they can carry on wearing their T-shirts!

What’s more, the huge increase in electrical and electronic appliances can often offset the gains made in terms of more energy efficient heating
and lighting.

The truth of it is that we’re still in the very earliest days of our journey to an ultra low carbon economy. And there’s a lot work ahead to move us down that road rather quicker than we’re moving down it today.

Jonathon Porritt is founder director of Forum for the Future, www.forumforthefuture.org.uk

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