Lord Deben, the former environment minister John Gummer, who served under John Major, has history with the UK housebuilding industry and he has no intention of letting it off the hook now.
Here, the 81-year-old chair of the Climate Change Committee, which advises government on tackling global warming, outlines how housebuilding and planning need to fundamentally change if the UK is going to achieve its net zero carbon goals.
“The fact that we are still building homes which we are going to have to retrofit is, for me, the biggest scandal,” he says.
Deben claims that the six-year window of delays caused by government going back on its commitment to zero carbon homes by 2016, failure to produce a Future Homes Standard and housebuilders’ constant lobbying of government to give them more time to make the switch from fossil fuels for heating new homes, has added a million problems to the climate challenge.
He says that over that period around one million homes have been handed over to consumers from housebuilders. One million homes that are dependent on fossil fuels and are lacking the fabrication standards necessary to meet zero carbon requirements. One million homes that will all need to be retrofitted at a not insignificant cost to the homeowner.
Faster implementation
What the committee wants to see now, says Deben, is government produce its Future Homes Standard, which will require homes to produce 75-80% fewer carbon emissions and eventually become net zero carbon, as a matter of urgency (consultation took place in 2019, with full technical specifications to be consulted on in 2023). Implementation must be brought forward from 2025 to 2024, he argues.
Consultation on the standard also suggested that electric heat pumps should become the preferred mass-market solution, largely in response to the CCC’s recommendation that new homes should not be connected to the gas grid from 2025.
“The housebuilders will say that they can’t do this,” says Deben. “I had to deal with them for years as secretary of state. They always say this, and I’m afraid it isn’t true because other countries manage to achieve this. The level we are asking for is actually not far out of line with what has been built in Germany and Scandinavia for a very long time.”
He adds: “This is an industry that hasn’t stepped up to the mark. Government has got to impose [the new standard] and it’s got to be tough and it’s got to be immediate.”
Planning for change
Planning too, says Deben, needs to be heavily interwoven into the environmental agenda, echoing widespread calls from the property sector for government to ensure that the new Planning Bill directly aligns with its obligations under the Climate Change Act.
“One of the problems is that the planning system at the moment does not include the necessary elements to reach net zero,” says Deben. The CCC is calling for a “net zero test” to ensure that all government policy, including planning decisions, is compatible with UK climate targets.
Empowering local leadership to deliver on their own regions’ climate goals will also be essential if the UK is to achieve net carbon zero by 2050, says Deben, and he wants to see real evidence of government understanding that dealing with net zero has to be done at a local level.
Devolution for the planet
“You can’t do it all centrally,” he says. “The Planning Act has to make it possible for local authorities to make decisions locally about how they do it, how they meet local requirements.
“We need to have much more devolution and much more partnership between government and local government. This thing can only be done if there is that partnership and we are pressing very hard for that.
“The thing the development industry has to understand is that almost every local authority has declared a climate emergency,” says Deben. “They have mainly committed themselves to become net zero by 2030 for the local authority and then they have dates for the locality. They are going to have to reach those in one way or another and the Planning Bill is going to have to give greater powers to local authorities to be able to make these decisions and choices.”
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