The National Housing Federation (NHF) and 50 other organisations including Velux, Nationwide and E.On, has signed an open letter in the Financial Times and the Guardian urging the Government to deliver the £13.2bn promised for insulation in the 2024 manifesto or risk setting back net-zero and 3,000 jobs.

The Government had pledged to spend an extra £6.6bn for the Warm Homes Plan, taking the total spending over five years to £13.2bn.

The organisation predicts that limiting investment to the amount allocated in the Autumn budget at the June spending review will result in the loss of 3,000 skilled roles. Meanwhile, the total £13.2bn allocation is an opportunity to add 12,000 new skilled roles to the retrofit workforce within this Parliament.

Labour, always a fan of the expression “tough choices” now faces the reality of trying to balance a teetering economy with its election pledges and are seeking budget cuts to replace lost revenues. Indeed, uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Ministers are reportedly now considering diluting the pledge on home insulation, alongside a raft of other cuts.

The NHF says that sector has been “rocked by boom-bust government policymaking since it grew out of the last Labour administration” and a new boost of confidence is needed to secure the sector’s future, train heating engineers and installers and support manufacturing clean heating technologies in UK plants.

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