MPs call for green building legislation crackdown

The government's domestic energy efficiency programmes have resulted in a reduction in energy use over the last three years, but that trend is unlikely to continue unless the government improves energy saving advice to home owners and steps up enforcement of green building regulations.

That is the conclusion of an influential report from the cross-party Public Accounts Committee of MPs, which argues that the government will struggle to meet its target of reducing household energy consumption by 36 per cent on 200 to 2005 levels by 2020 unless it improves the enforcement of energy efficiency regulations.

The report found that while domestic energy consumption has fallen in recent years - in part as a result of government education and insulation programmes - the UK still lags behind European countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden with householders using on average eight per cent more energy than they did in 1990.

The committee also warns that even recent improvements could be under threat as "without sufficient improvements in energy efficiency, energy consumption may rise again due to trends such as the growth in the number of households, the demand to use more electronic appliances and a desire to live in warmer homes".

Edward Leigh, chairman of the public accounts committee, said: "The seemingly good news that household energy consumption fell between 2004 and 2007 is confounded by two sobering facts. One is that households in 2007 were still using eight per cent more energy than in 1990. The second is that household energy use will continue to rise, a function of the need for extra housing, rising expectations about how warm dwellings should be and an ever-rising use of electrical appliances."

The committee welcomed the government's £2.6bn a year domestic energy efficiency investment programme, but recommended that more needed to be done to accelerate the rollout of smart meters and encourage landlords to deliver energy efficiency improvements for tenants.

It also warned that the government's efforts to reduce energy consumption were hampered by the fact that responsibility for various initiatives are split between a number of departments with more than 80 per cent of the expected energy savings by 2020 expected to come from Building Regulations and obligations on suppliers that are outside the control of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

In addition, it ruled that those regulations are being inadequately enforced by the department that does have responsibility for them, the department for Communities and Local Government (CLG). It concluded that "little is known about the extent of compliance with the energy saving parts of current Building Regulations". This situation is not helped by the fact "the building control profession has not prioritised the enforcement of the energy efficiency parts of the Building Regulations".

A spokesman for the CLG said that the department had "already tightened house-building standards to deliver a 40 per cent reduction in the level of carbon emissions from an average new build home since 2002" and has " comprehensive plans in place to improve compliance with our energy standards".

He added that the government was working with the Building Control Alliance and the construction industry to develop a strategy to improve access to information and training on energy efficiency rules, and was also consulting on the introduction of stop notices and heavier fines for those builders that breach the standards.

Energy and climate change minister Joan Ruddock insisted that the government's initiatives were working and that its forthcoming initiatives would ensure that energy use continues to fall.

"We know there is still plenty of work to do which is why our current programmes will see £3.8bn invested in energy efficiency improvements by 2011," she said. "We're also consulting on methods of helping hard to treat homes, encouraging low-carbon heat generation, expanding home energy audits, and overcoming the financial barriers that can prevent householders from making the changes needed to reduce their energy use and carbon emissions."