Emergency insulation for tenants this winter - call by think tank

Rolling out emergency insulation this winter in the nation’s draughtiest homes could save tenants or other residents £260 a year.

That’s the claim of the New Economics Foundation which says basic measures like loft and cavity wall insulation in every available home could be achieved for 77 per cent of the public money being spent on the energy price guarantee.

The government has frozen the energy price cap at £2,500 for a typical household for the next two years. The report finds that this will cost £35.5 billion. But only £330m extra a year has been allocated to upgrading leaky, draughty housing. 

The New Economics Foundation says the government could kick-start an emergency insulation programme with £3.6 billion and complete it with £27 billion.

The government has set a target for all UK homes to be upgraded to decent energy efficiency levels by 2035, but insulation rates have dropped in the last decade. 

If insulation rates had kept pace with their 2012 peak, almost all homes would be at Energy Performance Certificate C by now. 

The research finds that, had all homes been upgraded over the last decade, families in England and Wales would be saving £530 a year on their average energy bills. In addition, the government would be saving £3.5 billion on freezing the price cap in over six months, making the price cap freeze 10 per cent cheaper for England and Wales.

NEF research claims that not only would insulating and upgrading homes save families and the government money, it would also improve energy security. 

If all homes had been upgraded to EPC C, today England and Wales could reduce their expensive gas imports by at least seven per cent.

The UK’s annual greenhouse gas emissions would have fallen by the equivalent of the annual carbon footprint of Leeds, Bristol and Bradford combined (9.2 tonnes), the research finds.

Some 68 per cent of homes in the UK – nearly 19m – do not meet decent energy efficiency standards. Government data shows that 5.2m homes have no cavity wall insulation and 7.9m have substandard or no loft insulation. 

The NEF says simple, affordable, and easy-to-install measures like loft and cavity wall insulation, draught proofing, thermostatic radiator valves and smart thermostats have a major impact on energy bills. It would cost £1,158 on average to install these in a typical semi-detached house, which would slash energy bills by £273 over a year annually. Under current energy prices these costs would pay for themselves in savings in five years. 

NEF recommends that the government kick-start an emergency insulation programme to subsidise basic, affordable insulation measures in the nation’s draughtiest homes.

Heather Kennedy, senior organiser at the New Economics Foundation, says: “The government knows that families will be agonising over turning the heating over the next few months. But they’re refusing to consider the simple solution that would keep families warm this winter and in the winters to come: installing basic emergency insulation in our draughtiest homes. Instead of spending money on new temporary support each year, that only lands in the pockets of big energy companies, we could instead invest in making all our homes well-insulated and heated by clean, green energy — whether we rent a flat or own a castle.”

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