Charities: Do not cut cash for insulation

Ministers have been urged to redraft plans to cut funding for home insulation intended to help people in fuel poverty.

We told last week how the budget for energy-efficiency measures could be slashed by 14% next year, from £141.7 million to £124m.

When the first minister was quizzed on the plan at Holyrood on Thursday she said an emergency budget review was under way and blamed soaring inflation and core budget cuts by the UK Government.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney is expected to set out spending plans on December 15, after the UK’s chancellor reveals a Medium-Term Fiscal Plan in late November.

Friends of the Earth Scotland’s Mary Church said: “Cutting programmes that can keep people warm this winter at a time of spiralling energy prices, rising fuel poverty and ever more pressing climate breakdown is truly a false economy. Making homes more energy efficient is a triple win for jobs, people’s wellbeing and bills, and climate change.”

Frazer Scott, chief executive of Energy Action Scotland, said: “Meaningful targeted financial support to those in most need is absolutely necessary because people are facing life or death decisions over heating or eating.”