The Climate Change Select Committee and its chair Tim Yeo MP issued a damning indictment of Green Deal last week by branding it a ‘disappointing failure’ and its first 18 months as ‘largely wasted’.
But with support rapidly waning from MPs, Prior Boardman says the scheme should not be judged until it has had longer to bed in.
“Green Deal’s pay as you save concept is brilliant in theory, yet difficult in practice,” she said.
“Green Deal is a brand new concept like no other world-wide. It takes years to embed a new scheme into long standing bureaucratic infrastructures, and into the mindsets of traditional silo trade sectors, notwithstanding the end users who are in the main passive about carbon reduction and energy efficiency.
“This does not mean Green Deal is a failure, it means that much more time is needed to repair the snags, to oil the wider legislative wheels, and be fuelled by rising consumer confidence and trades that will diversify to make it work. Green Deal is worthy of a chance to prove itself in whatever political package it comes in. It is a benevolent policy framework and here to stay for a very long time. Remember, Rome was not built in a day, nor anything else great in this world.”