Richard Exell
One of the casualties of last week’s Spending Review was the Warm Front scheme, which provides a grant (usually of up to £3,500) to people on low incomes to pay for insulation and heating measures, such as loft insulation, draught proofing, cavity-wall insulation, hot-water-tank insulation and installing central heating.
Philip Pearson
Despite the Coalition’s promise to “protect consumers, particularly the most vulnerable,” they will abolish Consumer Focus, our fuel poverty champion, saving £5m. Today’s fuel poverty figures from DECC show that 4m households in England can’t keep their homes warm. It’s worth remembering that Consumer Focus has achieved big wins for consumers –such as a £70 million energy bill refund, and cash ISA reforms saving over £15 million a year. CF has saved consumers around £500 million over the last two years – 100 times its government funding!
Nicola Smith
We’ve been reviewing the cuts of the last few months, and have found a few that we should have featured that have not appeared on Cuts Watch. These include a 15 per cent budget cut at the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.
Philip Pearson
Green show homes, Eco towns and energy efficiency initiatives are among the £19.5m in green cuts announced by Communities Minister Eric Pickles, as part of £32million savings in 2010-2011 (see also Cuts Watch 200). Each decision will mean reductions in future CO2 savings, green jobs and new low carbon prodcut markets.
Richard Exell
It looks as though cuts in the Comprehensive Spending Review will hit the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs particularly hard, threatening key conservation agencies and the public stake in nature reserves. Dozens of conservation charities and campaigns have united to write to DEFRA to demand “Don’t cut the Countryside”!
Richard Exell
Plans for a zero-carbon development at Shoreham are to go ahead, but the future of other planned eco-towns remains in the balance.
Richard Exell
The government announced this morning that the £5,000 subsidy for low-carbon vehicles will not be axed.
Richard Exell
The Coalition is reviewing the scheduled £5,000 subsidy for electric vehicles, as part of a shift to less cash support for the motor industry.
Richard Exell
Design Reviews – the mechanism by which design standards are enforced in new property developments – could be the main victim of cuts in funding for the Commission on Architecture and the Built Environment.
Owen Tudor
Foreign Secretary William Hague has announced some initial cuts in the FCO budget (but so far only in the programmes it runs – a very small part of the FCO budget compared with staffing, embassies and high commissions). Out of the £140m programmes budget, he plans to cut £18m (12-13%), but different areas will suffer disproportionate cuts. And the big loser will be overseas scholarships.
UPDATE – I now have the figures for current expenditure on many of the programmes mentioned below, and have built them into the text (showing what’s updated). In proportional terms, the biggest cut is in programmes on drugs and crime programmes, cut in half, but the much larger scholarship programme is being cut by 40% which is probably the most important cut. Low carbon growth programmes are ‘only’ being cut by 17%, so not as big a loser as I first thought.
