Nick Davies, head of climate policy at Green Alliance said:

“The Chancellor mustn’t get herself through a difficult budget by creating problems for the future. Ditching a poorly governed home energy efficiency scheme might look like an easy decision, but a third of English households spent over ten per cent of their income on energy last year after housing costs. So we still need a plan backed with sustained funding for insulating homes and unlocking the bill-cutting benefits of clean technology for more families.
Rumoured plans to take VAT off energy bills wouldn’t be well targeted, and could effectively provide a tax break for gas that has to be funded indefinitely. Moving some old policy costs off bills and into general government spending could provide the same upfront cuts to bills, but would cost the government less over the long term and support clean technologies rather than fossil fuels.”