Green New Deal Email Your MP For 1010

Dear MP,

Good housing - living in a warm home shouldn't be a luxury.
Rocketing fuel prices - letting heat escape through our draughty doors and leaky windows is literally throwing money away.
Our inefficient houses are bad news for the climate too – did you know three-quarters of the energy we use in our homes is for heating?
The only way to effectively tackle the rise of fuel poverty is with a major programme of energy efficiency, retrofitting all properties to basic minimum standards

Yours sincerely,

Adrian Windisch
This email was sent via 10:10. http://www.1010uk.org


No-one likes seeing their hard-earned cash disappearing through the roof, walls and windows, but that's the reality for millions of us who live in draughty, underinsulated houses and can't afford to do them up this winter.

Now we have an opportunity to fix this. The government claims to be working on a new policy to provide loans to cover the cost of energy-saving home improvements. Repayments are linked to, and automatically deducted from, the money you save on fuel bills.

But as always, the devil's in the detail. With just days till MPs debate this for the last time, there are some big problems with the deal as it stands.

This could be the most important bit of practical climate legislation for years. It's crucial that our MPs get this right, so let's make sure they know it!

Click here to email your MP now

Climate minister Chris Huhne has said the Green Deal will bring a 'once-and-for-all refit' of Britain's homes, making sure your street is 'ready for a low-carbon future'. There are three big things that need to change if that's going to happen:
Cheaper: Green Deal loans could have interest rates as high as 10%. If they want to offer a proper alternative to a bog-standard bank loan, they'll need to bring this right down.
Quicker: As things currently stand, landlords with the leakiest houses won't have to fix them until 2018. That's 680,000 households potentially facing six more long cold winters. We can do better.
More attractive: If the government really wants people to take this up, they need to make it as attractive as possible. Think council tax rebates, cuts in stamp duty and mandatory efficiency reporting on sale properties.

Time is tight, but if we all email our MPs this week we can push this issue right to the top of their agenda and make sure these problems get fixed.

Since the beginning, 10:10 has been about cutting our own emissions, while using our combined weight to push for policies that make it easier to do the right thing. If we can get MPs to fix the Green Deal in parliament, we'll have helped tackle one of the biggest obstacles to low-carbon living in this country.

Daniel Vockins
10:10 campaign manager