Demand warm homes (Oct 2024)

Please ask your MP to urge the government to ensure everyone has a warm home.

We need a national street-by-street programme of basic insulation, starting with those who are most vulnerable.

Friends of the Earth has produced a briefing for every constituency which you can send to your MP. Local briefings can be downloaded here:

Get contact details for your MP from Parliament website.

Other constituency briefings for England and Wales are in regional zip files linked from Friends of the Earth website.

Research by the Institute of Health Equity for Friends of the Earth found that cold homes are causing serious health impacts, including respiratory problems, heart attacks, and worsening mental health. Cold homes are costing our society billions per year, through increased costs to the NHS, higher caring costs, bigger energy bills, lost productivity from ill health and higher carbon emissions. It is estimated that 9.6 million households in the UK (34%) are on a low income and living in energy inefficient homes which they cannot afford to insulate.

The government has committed to deliver a Warm Homes Plan which will invest an extra £6.6 billion in warm homes over the next parliament. It has also promised to regulate landlords to ensure the homes they rent are well insulated. This is a very promising start, but not nearly enough to ensure all energy inefficient homes in the UK are insulated in the next 10 years.

To upgrade homes urgently the government needs to:

• Act faster - Urgently publish their Warm Homes Plan by the end of this winter and kick start a nationwide insulation programme to insulate our heat-leaking homes and roll out cheap, green renewables. This plan should pledge to insulate at least 9.6 million homes through funding and regulation.
• Go further - Increase funding for warm homes to £6 billion a year over the next 10 years and/or identify other policy levers and legislation to ensure all cold homes are insulated by 2035.
• Be fairer - Prioritise those most impacted by the energy crisis by targeting street by street insulation in energy crisis hotspots and provide additional financial support for those struggling with energy bills.

Investing in warm homes would more than pay for itself through avoided health costs and climate costs, savings that will continue to accumulate over decades. There are also likely to be economic benefits from such a large programme in terms of jobs in manufacturing and installation. The initial programme should be kick-started using revenue from the Energy Profits Levy / Windfall Levy and through legislation to upgrade privately rented homes to EPC C by 2030.

Some background information on Greater Nottingham districts was compiled for our 2022 "Warm This Winter" campaign.