Ken pledges lower energy bills for Londoners

Ken Livingstone today pledged to cut the cost of living for Londoners through series of new ambitious measures to tackle the rising cost of energy bills. If he is elected on May 3rd, Ken will:

1. Secure London’s fair share of national energy efficiency funding to help cut Londoners’ energy bills by £150 a year
Under Boris Johnson London has lost out on over £400 million of funding for home energy efficiency that could have been secured from energy utilities’ national obligations. His own RE:NEW scheme has only delivered measures to 40,000 homes, against his target of 200,000 by May 2012. This has meant hundreds of thousands of London households paying higher energy bills than they needed to.
Ken will call an immediate Energy Summit of all the main domestic energy suppliers and work with them to ensure that London gains the maximum possible benefit from the remaining free insulation programmes that end in 2012 and gets its’ fair share of the £1.3bn per year energy companies are required to spend on home insulation from 2013. On average, a household that installs proper insulation will save £150 a year off their energy bills.

2. Prioritise insulating older people’s homes
According to AgeUK, twenty-two thousand UK pensioners died prematurely last year simply because they could not afford to heat their home adequately. If London can secure its’ fair share of home energy efficiency funding then free insulation would be available to every pensioner in London who is struggling with energy bills (ie qualifying as the government’s ‘super-priority’ group).

3. Establish the first ever London-wide Energy co-operative
The co-operative would help Londoners save money on their fuel bills by purchasing energy on the wholesale markets, giving Londoners an alternative to rip-off energy suppliers who have hiked up their prices.

4. Make cutting Londoner’s fuel bills and reducing carbon emissions a Mayoral priority
Ken will take personal charge of the drive to improve energy efficiency and cut Londoners’ heating bill costs. He will require a weekly progress report from City Hall officers and will chair a ‘Warm Green Homes’ task force to drive the agenda through.


Ken Livingstone said,

“In the 21st century it should be completely unacceptable that thousands of children, families and pensioners in London shiver in their homes each winter because they can’t afford to heat their homes. Yet year after year we have seen huge hikes in gas and electricity bills and inaction from David Cameron and Boris Johnson.
 
‘Alongside my pledges to cut the fares and campaign for lower rents, cutting Londoner’s fuel bills is at the very top of my agenda. If I am elected I pledge to:

‘Firstly, take personal charge of an unprecedented drive to insulate hundreds of thousands of homes which will save Londoners hundreds of pounds. It’s astonishing that London has missed out on over £400 million home insulation funding. I will put the full resources of the GLA behind a drive to ensure every single penny of insulation funding that is available to the capital is used to cut Londoners’ fuel bills.

‘Secondly, I believe the Mayor must act when rip-off energy companies impose huge hikes to Londoners’ fuel bills. I will establish the first ever London-wide Energy Co-operative to provide a cheaper alternative to the big-six and save Londoners money on their bills.

‘And finally I will make energy costs a Mayoral priority. If I’m elected I will call an immediate Energy Summit of all the main domestic energy suppliers and chair a ‘Warm Green Homes’ task force to provide leadership and take action to cut Londoner’s fuel bills.”


Notes for editors:

1. Boris Johnson’s failure to help Londoners cut energy bills
The average cost of keeping a home warm has risen by over £300 a year since 2008. Almost 200,000 Londoners have missed out on lower energy bills, as a result of Boris Johnson's failure to take advantage of funding available from energy companies and the Government.
Between them, the CERT, CESP and Warm Front schemes were worth approximately £7 billion during the Tory Mayor's time in office, with London's share on the basis of the number of dwellings worth approximately £846 million.
So far the Mayor's RE:NEW and RE:CONNECT programmes have only managed to bring in £5.7 million of funding that has been made available by energy companies under their carbon reduction obligations from these schemes.
Boris Johnson has had enough time to write a £250,000 a year column for the Daily Telegraph but couldn’t find the space in his diary to get the big six energy companies to invest in London.  The capital has lost out on at least £400 million and Londoners’ energy bills are hundreds of pounds a year higher as a result.
With 10% of Londoners now unemployed, the Tory mayor has also missed a golden opportunity to create new jobs from a massive programme of insulation.
As in so many other areas, Boris Johnson has promised the world but delivered very little. His stuttering ‘RE:NEW’ home energy efficiency programme had only managed to help 40,000 households by February 2012, against Mayor Johnson’s pledge to retrofit 200,000 homes by May 2012.

2. The rising cost of heating your home
Across the UK household energy costs rose from an average of £938 to £1249 per year between December 2007 and December 2011. This has added £311 per year to the average home energy bill. According to GLA Economics, 562,800 households are in ‘fuel poverty’ in London, equivalent to 12.9% of the population.  A third of fuel poor homes in London include someone over the age of 60.

3. Carbon emissions and home energy efficiency
Thirty-six per cent of London’s carbon dioxide emissions come from energy used in the home.  The majority of this consumption is to provide heating. While 95% of London homes now have some form of loft insulation, most is inadequate.  There is also considerable potential to improve wall insulation, although London has a very high proportion (59%) of solid wall homes which are harder and more expensive to treat than cavity walls.

4. A London energy purchasing co-operative
We will form a London Energy Purchasing Co-operative to allow customers across London to come together to purchase energy directly on the wholesale market. Individual customers pay a much higher rate for electricity and gas than major commercial customers, such as TfL.

5. How Ken’s pledge would be delivered
London has lost out on over £400m of funding for insulation because the Mayor did not make the effort to get it. Energy Utilities are required to spend money in UK but don’t have to do it in London. The Government’s recent (November 2011) consultation on the Green Deal acknowledges that London has fared badly under the existing policy programmes.
Despite the clear disadvantage that Londoners have suffered with regard to these multi-billion pound insulation programmes, Mayor Johnson has failed to make getting London’s fair share a priority.  While billions of pounds have been lost to London, Johnson has focused on his £7.5m RE:NEW programme. Even then, RE:NEW has massively under-performed.
What is needed is a Mayor who will bring together all the main players, including the big 6 energy companies, the boroughs, and housing associations, and hammer out a deal for London. The new Energy Company Obligation ought to favour London as it requires the utilities to focus more on solid wall insulation and London has a large proportion of the homes which require this solution. There is still a possibility, with focused mayoral leadership, to get as much investment for London as possible from the remaining CERT fund before it closes in December 2012.