Summary
- The 2021 Spending Review and Budget will take place on the 27th October 2021. This is a critical moment ahead of COP26 and will cover three years in recovering from the pandemic and in driving action on climate and nature.
- Around 17% of UK greenhouse gases come from buildings, with 14% coming from homes. It will not be possible for the Government to meet its net zero target without substantially scaling action and investment on decarbonising housing.
- The Climate Change Committee (CCC) estimates that, by 2050, 75 percent of our homes will be heated by heat pumps1. The UK is currently lagging behind our European neighbours on the roll out of heat pumps2, and the government’s current plan to decarbonise homes won’t cut emissions enough to meet its own legally binding climate commitments.
- The 2021 Spending Review and Budget is the opportunity to rectify this. The Chancellor must commit to an extra £12 billion of public investment to green our homes (with £4.76bn for heat pumps, alongside £7bn for energy efficiency over the next three years). This should be delivered in the form of a comprehensive package of grants, loans and tax incentives that would see the deployment of heat pumps rapidly ramped up, covering the full cost for low-income households, and alongside a commitment to phasing out new gas boiler installations early in 2030s and a fully-funded programme to properly insulate our homes.
- If the government acted now, up to 138,600 new jobs could be created and the economy would be boosted by £9.8bn by 2030.
