Greg Clark's 'green deal' will reduce household energy bills, boost the construction sector... and cut pollution

ConHome has already quick-fired the ten main stories from last week's party Conference plus David Cameron's compassionate agenda and George Osborne's public spending crackdown. Each day this week we'll be reviewing other big stories to emerge from the Manchester Party Conference that we didn't cover adequately in a very busy last week. We started with education yesterday and turn to the environment today.

You do not have to sign up to the full climate change agenda to sign up to Greg Clark MP's policy on home energy efficiency.  It's a sensible money-saving policy and it's a wonder that it has never been proposed before.

The Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change announced his 'Green Deal' last week and it was given a very warm welcome by Geoffrey Lean over at The Telegraph:

"It got precious little publicity, but the Tories confirmed a truly radical policy at their conference in Manchester this week.  Shadow energy and climate change minister, Greg Clark, announced that a Conservative government would make £6,500 available to every household in the country to take energy saving measures. The money would be provided upfront, and householders would only have to pay back a proportion of what they saved on their energy bills each year. It would attack the biggest single source of carbon dioxide; heating and powering homes is responsible for some 27 per cent of Britain’s emissions. And the Tories reckon that it will create a £2.5 billion a year industry providing up to 70,000 skilled jobs."

The £6,500 maximum energy efficiency loan wouldn't actually come from the public purse but - explains Charles Glover at The Times - from the companies that undertake the home improvement work.

Tim Montgomerie