Builders Merchants Journal – BMJ Publishing to Builders Merchants and the UK merchanting industry for more than 95 years
Leaders from more than 50 of the UK’s leading built environment companies have warned the Prime Minister not to scale back the green levies on energy bills.
In a letter to David Cameron coordinated by the UK Green Building Council, chief executives from a range of firms urged the Government not to scale back schemes such as the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) in a bid to reduce consumers’ energy bills.
The warning follows Cameron’s statement in Parliament last week that “We need to roll back some of the green regulations and charges that are putting up bills.”
The letter argued that energy efficiency is the “only sure way” to protect households against rising bills in the long-term, and that rolling back ECO, which is designed to improve the energy efficiency of vulnerable and low income households and ‘hard to treat’ properties, would instead increase energy bills for these consumers and have “severe consequences” for jobs in the sector.
The leaders also urged Cameron to consider using additional incentives such as Stamp Duty to encourage uptake of the Green Deal, which could help reduce the cost of ECO.
>br>Paul King, Chief Executive of the UK Green Building Council, said: “Energy efficiency is the only guaranteed way to combat rising energy bills and it defies belief that the Prime Minister is considering ‘rolling back’ one of the Government’s biggest initiatives to achieve this.”
Among the signatories are:
