Alison Seabeck MP

Working hard for you

Tories’ Power Cut to Solar Feed-in Tariffs

This Conservative-led Government, which claims to be the “greenest Government ever”, have again managed to leave many small businesses, homeowners and charities high and dry. Many will now not be able to pursue their plans for installing solar panels to reduce their energy bills.

The initial plans to reduce the Feed-in Tariff in April were abruptly brought forward to the end of 2011 without any consultation or foresight on the impact on local communities.

When we introduced the scheme, we set it at a fair level to attract small and medium sized businesses and individual home owners to invest in the scheme. A review was scheduled for 2013 but again, this government are cutting too far too fast. People who are in the process of having the panels installed are seeing a deficit of over 50 per cent and many are now unable to complete.

I have been contacted by other individuals, housing associations, heating installation businesses and a church, all of whom are now being presented with the new scheme without having been able to factor this into their budget before the cut-off date! This, I fear, will also have a wider impact on the budget to build new homes and I don’t think that this was what the Housing Manager had in mind.

I recently tabled a question in the House of Commons and have also written to the Energy Minister to ask what consultations have taken place with housing and whether the implications of this sudden change have been fully considered. Unsurprisingly the Government do not see a necessity to assess the level of business failures and job losses in the renewable and construction sector. In Plymouth and the South West we really do need to invest in and protect our local businesses, enterprises and jobs and this latest broken promise by this Tory Government is not helping. Up to 100 000 social homes will not now have solar power and nearly nine of ten families will be excluded, too.

Are the calculated savings really worth cutting up existing contracts and are SMEs again expected to adapt to the Government’s change of heart in these exceptionally trying times?