3 May 2025, 15:28

By Andy Mayer

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with either solar power or sticking it on your roof to save a little money on your electricity bills.

There is everything wrong with being forced to do it by a Government Minister on an ideological crusade.

The latest policy proposal for compulsory solar installations on all new build homes by 2027, and possibly some businesses, is devoid of serious detail. It’s a kite being flown to test public response. The detail will come in a new consultation on the Future Homes Standard, a package of measures to change, and probably expand, what are already hundreds of pages of British building regulations. In turn, concluding a review process started in 2019, and repeated in 2023/24. It reverses a kite already flown in October 2024 to “encourage” rather than compel the change.

This deeply unserious approach to policy-making is being driven by feuds between lobbyists and media spads fending off criticisms of Net Zero. The timing reflects divisions this week from within the Government’s own coalition. The Energy Secretary Ed Miliband meanwhile wishes to press on with a “rooftop revolution”

© LBC