The union said that without a major rethink on financial help and incentives, the UK faces “painfully slow” progress on green homes and won’t meet its 2050 net-zero target.
The report found that short-term policies and a complex array of “ever-changing support packages” have left millions of households with insufficient help to meet soaring energy bills.
In July 2020, the government announced a £3bn package for British homeowners to make their houses more energy efficient and improve insulation efforts. The scheme offered households up to £10,000 to insulate their property, but it badly underperformed.
The Public Accounts Committee called it a “slam dunk fail” after it failed to draw sufficient applicants and was closed after less than a year.
Nevertheless, IPPR researchers said last year that retrofitting England’s homes with good insulation and heat pumps could create millions of jobs and cut household bills.
The Unison report found that most incentives...