Dear Secretary of State,
Although there are numerous positives to the Government's Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation (ECO), the Insulation Industry Forum, which represents more than 70% of the UK's £700m a year insulation industry is extremely concerned about the Government's plans for its implementation.
The withdrawal of the existing subsidies ahead of Green Deal Finance and ECO coming fully on stream will put 16,000 people out of work in the industry over the next year, with many jobs going before Christmas, the majority of which will be in loft insulation and cavity wall insulation.
The Government's own Impact Assessment shows that the loft and cavity wall insulation installation industry will fall off a cliff in 2013, even while assuming all necessary Green Deal and ECO mechanisms are in place from January 2013.
This will have severe implications for our industry. With declining demand, loft and cavity wall insulation manufacturing plants will struggle to remain at capacity, and subsequently not be able to continue with their current investment levels. It will also stifle and restrict investment and job creation amongst solid wall insulation companies.
The Government's own figures suggest this will lead to an 87.5% decrease in the loft insulation market, a 57% drop in the cavity wall insulation market and a 16% drop in the solid wall insulation market. It will also prevent the Government from meetings its green commitments.
We are supportive of the Green Deal and ECO, which we want to succeed. We are therefore calling on the Government to recognise the real threat to thousands of jobs in our industry, and work with us immediately to develop a set of measures to address the insulation gap and implement a suitable solution.
Yours faithfully,
John Sinfield, Managing Director Northern Europe, Knauf Insulation
Richard Pemberton, Chief Executive, Celotex
Tony Hardiman, Chair Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency (CIGA)
John Garbutt, Marketing Director, Kingspan
Thomas Heldgaard, Managing Director, Rockwool UK
Alex McLeod, Chief Executive, SuperGlass
Eamon McDonnell, Managing Director, Isover Saint Gobain
Padraig Barry, Managing Director, Saint-Gobain Weber
Neil Marshall, Chief Executive, National Insulation Association (NIA)
Andrew Warren, Director, Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE)
