At the end of 2012, I spoke out loudly against the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Government’s policies on energy.
Energy prices were soaring; fuel poverty and unpaid bills were rising fast; David Cameron promised to put every customer on the lowest tariff – a promise which unravelled within 24 hours.
David Cameron and the Conservatives were determined to ditch the highly successful Warm Front programme which had secured insulation improvement in more than 2 million homes over the previous 10 years, and despite the fact that nearly 30,000 qualifying applications had been turned down that year.
So Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats agreed this, but only if their own Green Deal scheme – an intended pay-as-you-save scheme over 25 years – was implemented. Nick Clegg said: “We'll ensure customers are never charged more for the home improvements than we expect them to make back in cheaper bills.”
I said at the time that the scheme just didn’t stack up. Typical schemes would cost £10,000 and, with an interest rate of 7.5%, required an annual repayment of £886. Families would have to be cutting two-thirds of their energy consumption to show any saving at all. It was a ludicrous proposition. The numbers simply didn’t add up.
But, despite the scathing criticism from me and others, Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats pressed ahead. They were so proud of their scheme, that Liberal Democrat candidates featured it in their election literature in local elections throughout the UK.
Well, this week, we have learned the cost of their arrogant incompetence. The National Audit Office (NAO) reported on the Liberal Democrats’ Green Deal scheme.
The NAO concluded that the scheme had cost £240 million, no energy had been saved and that energy bills had actually gone up as a result of the scheme. Clearly more a bum deal than a green deal!
And the cost of this Liberal Democrat arrogance and incompetence? Every Green Deal loan plan has cost the taxpayer – that’s you and me – more than £17,000.
