As the Guardian reported yesterday:
The UK government's flagship home insulation scheme, intended to kickstart a green recovery from the Covid-19 crisis, has been botched, disastrous in administration, devastating in some of its impacts, and stands in urgent need of rescue, an influential committee of MPs has said.
As they added:
There can be little chance of meeting the UK's target of net zero emissions by 2050 without a comprehensive programme to insulate Britain's 19m draughty homes and switch from gas boilers to low-CO2 heating, the environmental audit committee of MPs said on Monday.
I have, of course, been saying this for somewhat longer. Colin Hines and I have, on behalf of the Green New Deal Group, been talking about the need for a green transformation of our built economy for a decade or more now. Our aim has always been to release a ‘carbon army' of people trained to undertake this work. That would create new, long term, well trained and fair paying employment in every constituency of the UK, which was an incidental but also significant aim of the programme.
But neither is happening. I noted this Tweet by Harriet Lamb, who is now a Fair Tax Mark director:
Four reasons why Green Homes Grants were not taken up. I know; I tried: 1) We have only 500 retrofit coordinators but need 36,000; 2) only 750 heat pump installers; 3) only 1000 certified installers; 4) only 5 (out of 200) FE colleges training people in renewables. https://t.co/CI0Gy8sKFY
— Harriet Lamb (@HarrietLamb_) March 22, 2021
So the problem is a lack of government planning to train the people we need to meet a very obvious requirement that exists within our society that the private sector is unable or unwilling to address by itself.
I could, of course, have written that about almost every single problem that we have right now, and there are many of them. But this one is of particular interest to me, and vital to our long term wellbeing.
And the government has failed. No one else has. No one expected the market to solve this problem, because it was market mechanisms that created it.
Nor does anyone now think that the market will step in to address the failure that has occurred. It won't.
This issue has to be addressed bu government. And no one can claim funding is an issue. Colin and I have shown how to raise up to £100 billion to fund the Green New Deal. That will provide more than enough for this programme. All that is required is political willing.
What is becoming increasingly clear is that we live in an era when hands off government is no longer possible. But that is what we have. When will we see the change that is required to deliver the future that we need?
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The problem was the short-term nature of the government scheme. Companies would not invest in getting certified when the scheme end-date was already in sight. A few years ago, companies were retro-fitting insulation, paid by grants to the elderly.
As for training, there was an excellent system of day-release/apprenticeships. But “further education” seems to have “gone south” under New Labour. Colleges are now required to make a profit, while companies don’t want to pay. Day release has been replaced by two-week blocks spent at college, which companies don’t like.
Blaming anything on Labour now is a bit far fetched
I remember, a very long time ago, being vaguely interested in working as a roofer and duly going along to the local college to learn more about the state-sponsored course they did there. With a group of others, I was shown round, but on completion of the tour the news was broken to us that as the course was closing, we couldn’t do it. It was closing due to govt cuts, we were told. This was under Thatcher, before New Labour came to power.
The problem as the “tweet” shows is systemic. The toryscum gov/Mendacious Fat and his crew are incapable of organising a hot cup of tea, the results wrt insulation are thus to be expected. One of the problems is centralisation (everything emnates from Shitehall), local gov stripped of all resource & thus incapable, for example, of delivering a monitor/check for installs. Toryscum think only in market terms – whilst paying independent 3rd parties peanuts to do the inspections etc. I do not think there will be any change. A combo of Scotland/independence + civil disturbance in the summer + Brexit will sap any capacity that central “government” (ha!) has to deal with this.
Given this, local government, somehow (Idon’t know how), needs to look to itself to solve some of these problems, because it is a betting certainty that toryscum are mentally incapable of taking the measures needed. I’m working with a Borough Council developing ideas. Very much a bootstrapping approach.
It seems to me though that the bigger issue, highlighted by the Grenfell Investigation and of course many other stories is that the UK Construction Industry is unfit for purpose.
Even Housebuilders Persimmon had to admit that they had a serious problem with quality, flats are now shown to have been built without fire breaks, defective fire doors and incorrect insulation.
A builder was complaining about the conservatism in the industry which means that they are unable to adopt newer, cheaper, better and less environmentally damaging building techniques.
I suggest that the Industry needs a major review, staring at the top and working down.
Hmm – I can vouch for the slow start to all this as I am right now trying to procure low cost energy appraisals for new social housing developments (we want to switch to ground/air source etc) and all of the existing frameworks I have spoken to either don’t do that yet or are only just taking the first steps to getting into it.
I mean come on…………………we’ve been talking about this for ages.
So I agree with you Richard 100%. And it also applies to many other areas of the nation’s life. There’s so much that could be done, and so much employable work in it too. And Government has a pivotal role.
Good luck….
Supporting Mike Parr’s comment who knows much more about this than I do.
After WW2 housing was in a very poor state, and it was Government policy to improve this. Local government was instructed to get on with it and given the funds. Bathrooms were installed, houses damp-proofed, and new roofs put on. 50% grants given, overseen by local authorities all over the country, and most of the work done by local small builders. All of these had local knowledge. And technical colleges doing the training, creating local jobs.
Surely this is the only sensible way of doing it. What we need is common sense, but unfortunately, not much of that around these days. Agreeing with Mike’s comment, The Toryscum are mentally incapable of taking the measures needed.
There’s something more insidious and calculating going on David in my view and it is that the Tories know exactly what they are doing – they’re making Government look deliberately bad in order to manufacture consent to give it all away to the private sector or for people to just go away and look after themselves with whatever the market can provide for their private means.
When you vote for a Tory, you are voting for someone who does not believe in Government or the State. He or she is there to dismantle it from the inside out.