There have been some notable policy flip-flops. In 2015, the Government abandoned a plan requiring for new homes to be “zero carbon” amid efforts to speed up housebuilding. Lord Deben, chairman of the Climate Change Committee, which advises to the Government, told the select committee that “the people who laughed all the way to the bank were the builders who decided in advance that the Government would never get on with that”.

More recently, the Government has been criticised over its short-lived Green Homes Grant scheme, which awarded homeowners vouchers worth up to £10,000 to upgrade their homes. It was scrapped in March 2021, seven months after launching and having upgraded fewer than 50,000 of the 600,000 envisaged. 

Dame Meg Hillier, the MP who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, said the scheme was “a slam dunk fail” and “a terrible waste of money and opportunity at a time when we can least afford it”.

Reports that the Government might now be looking at cutting the Energy Company Obligation, a levy on energy bills to pay for boilers and insulation, have been met with alarm by campaigners. 

Charities have recently warned that earlier cuts to the ECO and another programme in 2013 led to “a 90pc cut in loft and cavity wall insulation measures”, adding that insulation rates have still not recovered. 

“Any damage to this levy would make these households more dependent upon gas, entrenching the crisis further,” says Juliet Phillips of E3G, a climate change think-tank. The Government says it is committed to extending the ECO to 2026 and boosting its value from £640m to £1bn. 

Policy appears to be moving in the right direction. The Government’s heat and buildings strategy recognises the importance of energy efficiency, and officials point to measures including smart meters, grants for heat pumps and other measures to help people heat their homes. The Future Buildings Standard, toughening standards for new-built homes in England, is set to come into force in 2025. 

Stew Horne of the Energy Saving Trust says an earlier date would help. “It costs so much less to build a home to a high standard than it does to retrofit –  10 times more to retrofit. You’re not adding much in terms of costs for people buying homes, but you are making a massive material difference to their ongoing costs,” he says.

Policy changes have dented industry confidence, Horne adds. “Funding works best when it’s long-term. That creates confidence and certainty for people applying for it, but also for the industry to support it. Then industry can gear up and provide the advice and support services that sit around that.”