The TUC has today released analysis which reveals the withdrawal of hundreds of millions of pounds of funding from the Green Homes Grant is going to hit jobs in the North and Midlands hardest.
The government promised to deliver 100,000 new jobs through the scheme across England. However, the TUC estimates the scheme’s peak job creation has been just 14,500 jobs, and that the funding cut will see 8,500 jobs lost going into 2021-2022, with only 6,000 remaining.
The TUC says just over half (51,000) of the promised 100,000 new jobs should have been created in the North and Midlands, but estimates that a maximum of 7,400 have been created there to date. The union body adds that more than half of these jobs (4,200) will be lost next year due the pulled funding.
The TUC says these are areas which have “been at the sharp end of industrial decline” and are home to the politically contested ‘red-wall’ constituencies, which have been identified by the government as areas to ‘level up’.
Government jobs target in “tatters”
The TUC says the withdrawal of funding from the Green Homes Grant scheme leaves the government’s target of 100,000 new jobs in “tatters.”
The Green Homes Grant, which provides funding for retrofitting homes to make them more environmentally-friendly, was announced by the chancellor in his ‘Plan for Jobs’ speech in July 2020.
This was the government’s flagship policy to “build back better” and create green jobs in the face of rising unemployment. The grants were since promoted by the prime minister as a key plank in his Ten Point Plan for a green recovery.
Recently however, the government has quietly cut more than £1bn of funding from its flagship green initiative.
The union body has also warned that last Wednesday’s Budget did nothing to fill the huge funding gap left by the Green Homes Grant cut.
The TUC says there was just £99 million in new direct green funding allocated to England in the Budget, which is just 7.4% of the £1.35 billion that the government cut from the Green Homes Grant.
The TUC says the Budget was a missed opportunity to reverse the Green Homes Grant decision, fully fund the scheme and invest in a powerful green stimulus to create millions more decent jobs in the Budget.
The TUC has set out plans to create 1.24 million good green jobs within the next two years. These jobs included retrofitting homes to make them more energy-efficient, as well as installing faster broadband, developing modern transport links and bringing forward new green technology.
In its retrofitting proposal, the TUC said 212,000 new jobs could be created and earmarked local authorities for delivery.
The Green Homes Grant has two components for delivery: a private voucher-based outsourced part and a local authority part. The private outsourced component has the lion’s share of responsibility for delivery.
The union body says instead of cutting Green Homes Grant funding, money should be redirected towards the existing local authority delivery process for private and social housing.
TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said:
“The government’s promise of 100,000 new green jobs is in tatters.
“And it’s the North and Midlands, areas that have been at the sharp end of industrial decline, which will be hit hardest by this cut.
“If the government was really serious about ‘levelling up’ the UK, it wouldn’t be pulling funding for green jobs at a time when unemployment is rising.
“The Budget was a missed opportunity to put things right. We need to see a proper green jobs drive to help power our recovery and stop mass unemployment.”
