In an interview over the weekend with Michael Gove, the Sunday Telegraph revealed that the housing minister wants to relax the current rules that will ban landlords from renting out their homes unless they pay to increase the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of their properties by 2028, which could include spending thousands on fitting a heat pump, insulation or solar panels.
“My own strong view is that we’re asking too much too quickly”, Gove told the Telegraph. “We do want to move towards greater energy efficiency, but just at this point, when landlords face so much, I think that we should relax the pace that’s been set for people in the private rented sector, particularly because many of them are currently facing a big capital outlay in order to improve that efficiency.”
Responding to the housing secretary’s suggestion National Residential Landlords Association(NRLA) chief executive Ben Beadle comments:
“It is over two years since the government completed its consultation on energy efficiency standards in rented homes. As a result of the delay in responding to this, there was never any hope of meeting the originally proposed deadlines, as we told the Minister earlier this month”.
He adds: “The NRLA wants to see properties as energy efficient as possible, but the sector needs certainty about how and when this will happen. Ministers need to develop a proper plan that includes a fair financial package to support improvements in the private rented sector. We will continue to work with all parties to develop pragmatic and workable proposals.”
The Property Energy Professionals Association (Pepa) is disappointed by Gove’s comments at the weekend that the government ‘is asking too much too quickly’ with the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) in the private rented sector.
Pepa believes that with no announcement from the Government on the implementation date of a minimum EPC rating of ‘C’ for over two years following their consultation in 2021, what the Government ‘is asking’ is not yet clear, which makes it difficult to understand on what grounds acting ‘too quickly’ is based.
The apparent dithering on this issue, Pepa says, is not helping any party involved in improving the energy efficiency of the private rented sector to help address the issue of fuel poverty, and exorbitant energy prices.
Pepa chair Andrew Parkin comments: “Aside from the imperative of improving the energy performance of all properties in the UK to achieve Government Net Zero targets, the hiatus caused by the lack of clarity on the implementation date of a minimum EPC rating of ‘C’ has left landlords up in the air in terms of when, and to what extent, to improve the energy efficiency of their properties”.
“Similarly, energy assessors, retrofit advisors, energy efficiency measure installers and manufacturers are unable to plan for the future, which is adversely affecting their businesses”.
Parkin adds: “If, as Michael Gove suggests, further implementation of MEES is held up, this will impede current improvement work, reduce business confidence to invest in products and skills necessary for the green economy, and undermine the credibility of future Government announcements about MEES.’
Pepa notes that Michael Gove acknowledges that ‘landlords face so much’ at the present, but much of what they face is as a result of other Government policies, many of which emanate from DLUHC, Michael Gove’s own department.
It can be strongly argued, Pepa says, that priorities are wrong when the climate change agenda should be made subservient to other issues.
“Arguably, as suggested by NRLA, it is up to government to provide a fair financial package for landlords to improve the energy efficiency of their properties. This would detach this issue from the other issues that landlords face”, a Pepa spokesperson said.
