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Hundreds of millions in unspent Green Homes Grant funding will not be rolled over
The government is set to claw back the majority of the £1.5bn allocated to funding energy upgrades in people’s homes after deciding not to carry over the unspent money to next year.
In answer to a written parliamentary question, business and energy minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan confirmed that any unspent funding from the first year of the Green Homes Grant scheme will not be rolled over beyond March this year. Instead the scheme will continue with a much lower budget of £320m.
It comes days after an answer to a different parliamentary question revealed that less than 5% of the £1.5bn budget allocated to the scheme in July last year had been spent as of the end of last month.
As of 22 January, 17,618 Green Homes Grant vouchers had been paid out to homeowners, worth a total of £73.1m.
An investigation by the Environmental Audit Committee into the project recently concluded that vouchers were being issued at “snail’s pace” and that the scheme was being hampered by “unnecessary bureaucracy”.
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The Green Homes Grant scheme was first introduced by chancellor Rishi Sunak in July as part of his ‘Plan for Jobs’ in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.
Under the scheme, £1.5bn was made available in vouchers to homeowners looking to make energy efficiency upgrades in their homes. A further £500m is being delivered by local authorities to carry out upgrades in low-income households.
At the most recent Spending Review, Mr Sunak announced an extension of the scheme until March 2022, backed by an additional £320m.
However, it is now clear that this additional funding is all that will be available after March this year, effectively cutting millions from the programme.
A Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy spokesperson said: “The Green Homes Grant voucher scheme was designed to provide a short-term economic stimulus while tackling our contribution to climate change. However, the prevalence of COVID-19 since the scheme’s launch in September last year has led to an understandable reluctance on the part of the public to welcome tradespeople into their homes.
“In his Spending Review, the chancellor announced £320m for the scheme in the next financial year as part of funding to make homes and public buildings more energy efficient.”
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