social enterprise

This article is provided courtesy of the news feed at http://www.newstartmag.co.uk/news

A boiler scrappage scheme and an extension of the warm front programme were among the green measures announced in Alistair Darling’s pre-budget report today.

Building on the success of the car scrappage scheme, Mr Darling will help 125,000 homes replace their inefficient old boilers with new models to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

From April next year £200m will be spent on bringing an extra 75,000 homes into the warm front scheme, providing more efficient heating and insulation for the most vulnerable. Further requirements from energy companies will cut energy bills in another 1m low-income households, Mr Darling said.

But the National Housing Federation, which represents England’s housing associations, said the chancellor had missed an opportunity to introduce a major programme of social housing carbon cuts.

‘With the world’s attention focused on the Copenhagen Summit, this was a real chance for the government to prove its green credentials and help hard up families cut their energy bills – but sadly it has passed up this golden opportunity,’ said the Federation’s chief executive David Orr.

Further benefits were announced to boost renewable energy in households. Homes with wind turbine or solar panels who plug their excess power into the national grid under the ‘feed-in tariff’ scheme will receive an average £900, tax-free, each year.

Electric cars will be exempt from company car tax for five years and Mr Darling also announce tax breaks for electric vans.

Mr Darling said that tackling global warming will bring new high-skilled, high-paid jobs that are ‘crucial to our future prosperity’.

Extra investment for low carbon projects was announced, including a £90m investment in the European Investment Bank’s new 2020 fund. Mr Darling said that the number of carbon capture and storage demonstration projects in Britain will be doubled from two to four.