Green Deal discussions - Huhne acknowledges the Federation's valid concerns

On 14 July, the Federation's Chief Executive, David Orr, will meet with Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne to discuss the leading role the social housing sector can help to deliver the Government's Green Deal programme. As the whole sector knows, the Green Deal aims to enable home owners, tenants and landlords carry out home and domestic energy efficiency improvements.

Orr will also meet with Climate Change Minister Gregory Baker on the same day. His aim is to persuade the Government that the Green Deal, which is being introduced through the Energy Bill, must be amended so that landlord, tenant and leaseholder consent for improvements cannot be reasonably witheld.

Orr's Federation also wants to ensure that funding is available equally for all potential Green Deal providers - including housing associations - and that the Green Deal assessment method is able to more accurately monitor and estimate the savings on fuel bills.

The Government has recently acknowledged the Federation's valid concerns on the Green Deal and Gregory Barker has told the House of Commons that ministers are aiming to tackle the issue of consent before the Green Deal is implemented. The Federation has declared that, without this issue being dealt with, just one household could prevent Green Deal improvements to a whole block of flats, thus denying the other residents warmer homes and reduced fuel bills.

Civil servants at the Department for Energy and Climate Change have told the Federation they are optimistic that funding will be equally available for all providers - thus avoiding monopolies from the energy companies.

In the meantime, the Federation is also lobbying the Government to safe-guard feed-in tariffs from photovoltaic panels for housing associations and will be collecting evidence for the first comprehensive review of the feed-in tariff scheme later on this year.