Government announces £200m Green Deal boost

Chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander today announced £200m of extra funding for the Green Deal.

Speaking at the NHBC annual lunch in central London, Alexander said the funds would be used to provide a time-limited ‘introductory’ offer to boost the early take up of the flagship energy efficiency scheme for existing homes.

The announcement follows the consultation on the Green Deal launched by the government yesterday.

Alexander said: “I can announce today that as part of the Autumn Statement we will provide £200m of funding for new and additional support to enable a special time-limited ‘introductory offer’ for the Green Deal.

“An offer that could save early adopters hundreds of pounds.  

“A fund to get the Green Deal off to a flying start.

“One that will work with the Green Deal mechanism and the ECO [Energy Company Obligation] to motivate thousands of more consumers to take up energy efficiency measures, over the next two years.”

He added that the Green Deal would create 60,000 jobs in construction and £14bn worth of investment over the next decade.

“This is to ensure the economy doesn’t face a choice between green and growth but can do both,” he said.

Alexander also revealed that under next week’s Autumn Statement, the government would be hand-picking 40 infrastructure schemes and giving them ‘new priority’ status.

He said the government was focused on switching funding from revenue to capital spending in order to support capital projects.

“This is not only to create thousands of jobs in the here and now but also lay foundations for the recovery of the economy in the future.

NHBC chief executive Imtiaz Farookhi said: “We welcome the government’s commitment of more funding to the Green Deal. Ensuring sustainable, energy efficient housing is critical; equally it is important that consumers are afforded the same kind of protection under the Green Deal as they currently receive with new homes. The chief secretary today recognised the important role NHBC could play in finding ways to ensure this happens and we look forward to working together with the government on this significant issue.

“This week has been a big week for housing, with the publication of the government’s new Housing Strategy which, as the chief secretary acknowledged in his speech at the NHBC Annual Lunch, is ambitious. We hope it will be successful in delivering the hundreds of thousands of homes promised but, like much of the housing industry, we believe the path will be neither easy nor quick. It is therefore important that the government is prepared to implement more measures if this new strategy does not work and today, the chief secretary indicated it would be willing to do so.”

The Green Deal framework will be launched from October next year.