Industry restated its call for a new Energy White Paper following the recommendation by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) of the urgent need for a new action plan on low carbon heat and energy efficiency. It also heeded the warning by the CCC chairman of the imminent expiry of virtually all relevant policies and funding needed to meet carbon reduction targets after 2020.

Dave Sowden, CEO of the Sustainable Energy Association said:

‘The CCC’s call for an integrated policy suite addressing low carbon heat and energy efficiency is exactly the right way forward.

“Its four mitigation recommendations on energy in buildings are particularly strong and we agree with all of them but particularly the need to take a more integrated approach. In fact we believe that the only way the CCC’s recommendations for buildings can be implemented is to commission a new Energy White Paper that sets out a strategic vision for how we meet our energy goals and underpins this with rigorous and fair comparisons of the costs and benefits of all available measures on a like for like basis.

“However there is a stark warning from the CCC’s Chairman, Lord Deben – namely that “virtually all policies or funding in these areas are due to expire during this Parliament”, and that “without significant new policies progress will fall behind what is required to meet legal obligations through the 2020s.”

It is therefore crucial and urgent that the Government moves ahead swiftly to produce a new Energy White Paper based on a thorough cost benefit analysis of all available measures, along the lines proposed by the Cost Effective Energy Measures Bill”.