After three weeks of being on the road, with nothing but the free sandwiches at the (various, and variously excellent) fringe events, what have we learned about the likely future of energy policy under our next Government?

Labour: “Every single penny to go to the fuel poor” Caroline Flint

All the political parties this year held their Conferences under particular external shadows. For Labour, these were undoubtedly that the unexpectedly close Scottish Referendum proved (justly) to be a difficult and time-consuming distraction in the run up to the Conference- which may or may not have had something to do with Ed Miliband forgetting to mention the deficit. In terms of energy policy announcements, however, it is Labour who have managed to offer the most interesting new promises. Building on the Price Freeze announcement of last autumn, Caroline Flint put demand-side policy at the centre of her speech. Labour promised to redirect current ECO and Green Deal schemes towards the street-by-street retrofit of fuel poor homes, and the provision of 0% interest, “energy efficiency loans”; they would also speed up the ambition of the PRS regulations, with a target to make all private rental properties Band C by 2027. The most interesting elements of Labour’s promises were (unusually) in the vision, not the detail: building on Shadow Minister Jonny Reynolds engagement with industry appears to have borne fruit, with Labour offering to make the rollout of energy efficiency measures in buildings “a National Infrastructure Priority”. While this comes with no additional budget to current commitments, sharp-eared listeners of Shadow DEFRA Secretary of State Maria Eagle’s own floor speech will have heard Labour promise borrowing powers to the Green Investment Bank- allowing them to generate additional capital for investment. At the SEA Fringe Event with PRASEG, Jonny Reynolds suggested that Labour were “very sympathetic to an energy in buildings strategy” as a sensible way forward after 2015.

Conservatives: “We are leaders in green tech, clean tech, nano-tech… tech-tech” Boris Johnson

The Conservatives were faced with the mounting crisis in the Middle East, and an insurgency of a very different kind when they lost an MP and key donor to UKIP during Conference. The UKIP threat has certainly pushed the Tories back towards their right wing, and the green image projected back in 2010 was wrapped up in four words on the UN Climate Change talks in Cameron’s speech. At back-bench level the party remains divided between progressives, such as Laura Sandys (who contributed thoughts on the green economy in the excellent Bright Blue Moderniser’s Manifesto) and Peter Aldous, who spoke about the importance of demand reduction to the Sustainable Energy Fringe Event, and those for whom the Climate Change Act constitutes a threat to energy security.  At ministerial level, Liz Truss also mentioned Climate Change in her floor speech- although her comments on the UK as a leader in progressive policy got no applause- and Amber Rudd gave a passionate defence of the UK’s role as in supra-national climate policy negotiations when she spoke to the Sustainability Hub Fringe Event. Boris Johnson was one of the few major Conservative figures to link the “green” agenda to the Conservatives dominant Conference of economic growth- citing London’s technology boom. There were, otherwise, no new policy announcements of significance- although there was one announcement where green policy was conspicuously lacking: the proposed new Starter Home scheme which will see 200,000 new homes built will exempt these homes from some elements of the building regulations to ensure 20% cost reductions will be passed onto homebuyers by developers.

Liberal Democrats: “We’ve been fantastic on Green” Stephen Lloyd

The Liberal Democrat Conference was quieter overall, but its activists and its agenda were both passionately defending “green” issues- including when it comes to energy policy. The Party is level in the polls with the Greens and is, moreover, eager to emphasise its track-record of Governance at the Department of Energy and Climate Change- where they have a Secretary of State in Ed Davey.

The Liberal Democrats vote on policy measures at Conference, and in the detail of those documents was plenty of interest including a promise to link the energy performance of buildings with Council Tax Payments. The new, and surprise, policy announcement in Ed Davey’s speech was that the Government would be making an additional £100m available in this financial year for the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund, after it closed early. In fringe events, both Ed Davey and Stephen Lloyd strongly defended the Party’s record- on community energy, energy efficiency, and renewables.

Overall

At the end of Conferences, the battle ground for the Election has become clear (the NHS, Housing, and the Economy among them). By far the biggest risk, to all Parties, however, is the fact that at this point there is no clear leader in the polls – this is for a number of factors, but an increasingly large contributor is the sense of anti-Westminster feeling amongst the Electorate. For energy policy, this will mean that reading the Manifesto pledges of both UKIP and the Green Party will take on greater significance, as either may prove influential on the eventual direction taken by the main parties in May 2015.