Here we go again.
The government has U-turned on another policy – this time the plan to bring EPCs up to a minimum level of C for rental properties, as well as watering down other green policies.
I’m disappointed with the move, and based on the feedback I’ve been hearing from inside and outside the industry – I’m not only one.
Some landlords have already prepped for changes they thought were happening by improving their rental stock, while others have chosen to sell rather than doing so. They should have guessed the government would move the goalposts, just like they frequently swap leaders.
But aside from the flip flopping, what’s baffling is improving the quality of the UK’s rental stock was a good policy, even if it may have been burdensome in the short-term.
It was a rare piece of long-term thinking – lets lower our energy bills at a time when the cost of energy has surged, and let’s make the UK an authority on green policymaking. That’s why a grant scheme was introduced to upgrade properties. So what’s changed?
I already thought it was doubtful the Conservatives would win the next election – after Boris Johnson and Liz Truss’ time in power – but now I think it’s even more unlikely, as this isn’t a good look.
Kicking the can down the road on green commitments seems a strange hill to die on as far as I’m concerned, and it seems PM Rishi Sunak is trying to paint himself as the master pragmatist versus ‘the dogmatic left’. But these were Tory policies that were scrapped, and other policies he talks of scrapping – like the so-called six recycling bins – were never policies in the first place.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has told the BBC they don’t want to tackle climate change by “bankrupting the British people”, but that’s utter nonsense. It would have provided some landlords with short-term challenges, I know, but it would have brought long-term benefits.
Policies that have made people struggle include Liz Truss’s economically incompetent mini-budget – not this.
In the current climate what the Conservative Party does time and time again is U-turn on their own plans, just as they did with Britain’s housebuilding targets, and broadly speaking the UK economy has stagnated under their rule. If this government don’t have the spine to stick to any of their policies, it’s time to find a government that will.
