Question
We are all aware of the sharp increase in energy bills that are having a huge detrimental effect on our communities. The debate we're seeing played out in the media focuses on the sourcing of our energy, but very little is being said about reducing the demand for energy in the first place.
People are requiring more gas and electricity to heat and power their homes, at a greater cost to them, than they would have needed if the national green homes grant scheme hadn't been a failure and if this government hadn't scrapped the zero carbon homes policy in 2016.
I do appreciate that this Council is helping to deliver the green home local authority delivery scheme and the ECO scheme which helps households to insulate better. These schemes are focused on low income and vulnerable households, with the vast majority of households not qualifying. This energy crisis is really going to bite for a lot of people who do not qualify for these schemes, and people are going to be looking for support and guidance at this challenging time. What is this Council going to do to facilitate this?
Minutes:
Question
We are all aware of the sharp increase in energy bills that are having a huge detrimental effect on our communities. The debate we're seeing played out in the media focuses on the sourcing of our energy, but very little is being said about reducing the demand for energy in the first place.
People are requiring more gas and electricity to heat and power their homes, at a greater cost to them, than they would have needed if the national green homes grant scheme hadn't been a failure and if this government hadn't scrapped the zero carbon homes policy in 2016.
I do appreciate that this Council is helping to deliver the green home local authority delivery scheme and the ECO scheme which helps households to insulate better. These schemes are focused on low income and vulnerable households, with the vast majority of households not qualifying. This energy crisis is really going to bite for a lot of people who do not qualify for these schemes, and people are going to be looking for support and guidance at this challenging time. What is this Council going to do to facilitate this?
Answer
There is no one solution for rising energy costs. As a result, we need multiple alternatives to engage and support our residents. The hugely successful Eco and Eco Flex Help to Heat scheme remain open, and continue to support families to keep down their home heating costs. The Council has partnered with the South East Energy Hub and an organisation called Warm Works to deliver a new scheme that offers energy saving home improvements including double glazing, not only to low-income households, but also to homes with a D to G energy rating. Around 1,300 homes have been already contacted directly offering them access to this energy and money saving programme.
Through our Property Strategy we are working with the Hardship Alliance to develop a range of support for those who are facing fuel poverty. We are working with Age UK Berkshire to identify, reach and support older people, who are struggling to heat their homes. We are working along with the Hardship Alliance, along with our Voluntary Community Sector, along with our other partners, to promote energy saving measures and grants available to those who are struggling to meet rising energy costs.
We also know that other organisations such as schools are seeing the impact of rising fuel costs eating into their limited discretionary budget, so we are continuing to roll out and seek to accelerate our Solar in Schools Programme in partnership with organisations such as In Range and the Community Energy Fund. Yesterday the Chancellor announced the doubling of the Household Support Fund, which is administered by Councils, along with a raft of measures to help us deal with recent increases to our cost of living; this includes the 5p fuel duty reduction, an increase in national income tax and insurance earning threshold and the 0% vat rating on energy saving materials. This comes on top of the recent rebate received by those in the A to D council tax bands. We are exploring multiple opportunities with external partners that will help address challenges of retro fitting and reducing energy demand.
Supplementary Question:
There is a lot of stuff there that is for low income funded households. Warm Works was the one I think you mentioned which may be for others, and I would like to find out some more please. I would like to hope that there is more than just that because there are a lot of people that do not qualify for a lot of the schemes. I also wanted to ask further in my supplementary, we have seen a lot from one of the Wokingham MPs, John Redwood, who is repeatedly making calls for the UK to construct new oil and gas fields to reduce its dependency on Russia and Russian gas, despite the fact that renewables have substantially shorter construction times as well as helping the UK achieve its net zero target. Do you Councillor Murray agree with me that the government’s focus should be on facilitating and enabling increased renewable energy generation and not giving the green light to more fossil fuels?
Supplementary Answer:
I cannot speak on behalf of John Redwood. He speaks on behalf of himself, and you can read his blog on a daily basis to find out what he thinks on any given issue. My own personal opinion and I have expressed this on numerous occasions in this Council and through our actions, we are doing all we can to increase the amount of renewable energy generated within our community. We are putting solar panels on schools. We are taking actions in order to help residents reduce the amount of energy in their homes and to reduce their energy bills as a result of it. If you have any additional ideas of things, we could be doing in order to generate mor renewable energy in our community I welcome them. If you have any additional suggestions of more that we could be doing to help our residents reduce their energy bills, and reduce the amount of energy they are using at the same time, I welcome them as well. Please contact me directly and if we can put it into place, we will action it.