So, as expected, the prospect of minimum Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) for rented property is back on the table. 

I braved the wind and the rain to travel to the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, where the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband promised a clamp down on energy-inefficient rental properties by 2030. 

Of course, we’ve been here before, with the previous Government consulting on plans to introduce minimum EPC levels of C for new tenancies from 2025 and all tenancies by 2028. 

We fully back the ultimate aim of improving the sector’s energy performance, but the timescales proposed were too tight then and are certainly too tight today. 

Labour has yet to publish any proposals, although these have been mooted before the end of the year. 

This is a complex subject and many competing voices will have a say; it will take time to get it right. The previous Government didn’t respond to its consultation for two years, before abandoning the plans in its bonfire of green initiatives towards the end of its regime. 

Put simply, it is not easy to come up with workable policy in this space and certainly not within an unrealistic timeline.

Let’s be generous and say that the Government comes up with clear plans from the start of 2026 and imposes a deadline of the end of 2030. That equates to 1,825 days. Based on the 2.68 million private rented homes in England alone at EPC D or below, that would require 1,469 properties to be upgraded every day. 

If you limit that to just working days, it increases to 2,130. It simply is not achievable. 

First, there is no clear guidance from the Government over what technology is preferred to help upgrade homes. Second, where are the skills and workforce required to undertake such a monumental task? 

Given the Government is also committed to delivering 1.5 million new homes, the country’s already chronic lack of resources in the building sector will be at bursting point. 

I would urge Government to work with the industry to deliver a plan that is workable and realistic. 

Surely the Government must recognise that upgrading the nation’s built environment – not just rented houses in isolation – requires a joined-up approach that considers skills, finance and technology in the round. 

The Government also needs to consider the pressures landlords are already facing, with the biggest shake-up of the laws that govern the sector in 30 years on our doorstep. 

Landlords have already made significant improvements to the energy performance of rental stock in this country. The Government’s own English Housing Survey shows that 2.2 million rental homes were EPC A to C in 2022, compared to 830,000 in 2012. Just shy of 45% of rental homes are at EPC A-C, higher than the proportion of properties in the owner-occupied sector. 

Our research shows that approximately eight out of 10 landlords buy property requiring upgrades. Sometimes that is a lick of paint and a new carpet, but often it’s more fundamental changes to buildings, driving up standards, including energy efficiency. 

We recently launched our refurb-to-let product to help landlords do exactly that and have been pleased with the initial response to it. 

I urge Government to work with landlords to establish workable policies, rather than work against them. We will certainly be making that point in our conversations with policymakers. 

Landlords have demonstrated that they can improve the energy performance of rental stock off their own backs. Imagine what they can do with progressive rather than punishing regulations. 

• Louisa Sedgwick is Managing Director for Mortgages at Paragon Bank *