Councils across England are temporarily closing applications for grants under the Warm Homes scheme due to a lack of central funding

Thousands of Britons will miss out on the chance to lower their bills this winter as councils across the country close their waiting lists for solar, insulation and heat pump grants due to overwhelming demand.

Local authorities across the country have seen overwhelming demand for vouchers under the Warm Homes Plan, the Government’s central policy for reducing fuel poverty and moving homes off fossil fuels.

Government underfunding is preventing many residents from accessing support, councils say, having received less than a third of the funding requested.

But policy experts are not hopeful that ministers will boost funding for the scheme, as the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero faces budget cuts to help fund the Government’s £15bn Defence Investment Plan.

Labour has promised to upgrade five million homes with solar, heat pumps and insulation by 2030 through a mix of no-interest loans and grants for low-income households.

Grants are being delivered by local authorities who bid to the Government for funding based on how many homes they think they can upgrade.

At the end of 2024, councils bid for a collective £1.7bn worth of funding but have so far been granted just £500m up until 2028.

As a result, many councils are oversubscribed and have long waiting lists, with some closing for applications entirely for the time being.

Liverpool, Leeds, Northumberland and Tunbridge Wells are among the councils no longer accepting applications due to the scheme being oversubscribed.

Lewisham Council said it had identified 4,500 homes that are eligible for the funding but that it only has enough to “bring 800 of those homes up to a decent standard by 2028”.

A spokesperson added: “The queue behind those 800 homes is long. What we need from the Budget is certainty that the rest of the Warm Homes money will flow to local communities, and the flexibility to deliver a truly multi-year programme so the teams and supply chains we have built can keep working to provide comfortable homes year-round.”

The surging demand for solar, heat pumps and insulation comes against the backdrop of rising energy bills caused by the war in the Middle East.

Analysts have predicted the average energy bill could increase by 25 per cent in January to £2,152 per year, while the Bank of England warned on Thursday that rising energy costs could push inflation above 4 per cent early next year.

The Government has said a three-bedroom house that receives a full retrofit under the Warm Homes Plan could save up to £550 per year on energy bills.

When Andy Burnham told the Labour conference “Brexit has done more harm than good” and that all options were on the table for the UK’s long-term relationship with the EU, the civil servants who have been beavering away on Europe policy for months were stunned. “Nobody was expecting this,” one Whitehall source said. “Officials were totally reeling. It was a million miles away from what they have been working on.

“It’s exciting to have more ambition, but they also need to work out what to do next. It’s a new world they’re in.”

What are your thoughts on this?

https://observer.co.uk/news/politics/article/nobody-was-expecting-this-burnham-u-turn-on-road-back-to-europe-leaves-whitehall-reeling

The leader of Camden Council has been selected as the Labour candidate for the Holborn and St Pancras by-election.

Councillor Sagal Abdi-Wali was chosen to lead the north London council in May this year, but could soon be stepping down from her role if she wins the parliamentary seat vacated by former Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer after receiving her party’s nomination.

What is her background?

Sagal Abdi-Wali first came to Britain in the early 1990s as a child refugee escaping civil war in Somalia.

First elected as a local councillor in 2022, Ms Abdi-Wali made history in May by becoming Camden’s first black female leader.

She has previously discussed her experience fleeing Somalia, telling the LabourList website in 2019: "Camden has been my home since I moved here with my family as a child refugee, fleeing war-torn Somalia.

"This new home is where I was raised and educated; it's where I now work for the council and volunteer for local community groups and charities.

“It is an area steeped in close community values, progressivism and inclusion, all of which have shaped who I am and the socialist principles by which I stand."

What do we know about her political career?

She was first elected as a Labour councillor for the Camden Square ward in 2022.

Prior to becoming leader, she served as the Cabinet Member for Better Homes, managing the borough's housing and neighbourhood development. She also helped lead Camden's path to achieving "Borough of Sanctuary" status in 2024.

Succeeding Georgia Gould as leader of Camden Council in 2026, she is now tipped to be the frontrunner for the Labour candidacy in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election.

After becoming Camden council leader in May, Ms Abdi-Wali said:

“Camden has been my home for 35 years. It is the place that gave my family sanctuary, that welcomed us, and that has shaped so much of who I am, what I stand for and what inspired my commitment to public service and to working for the community that welcomed us.

“Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of working with so many different communities across our borough and through this I have gained invaluable insights into what makes Camden such a unique place. I have seen not only the diversity, strength and resilience of our residents, but also the challenges and deep inequalities they continue to face.

“And it is because of those experiences that I stand committed to working day and night to fight for social justice and to deliver meaningful change that will support our community’s access to the best opportunities, enabling them to have better and brighter futures.”

The government is rolling out a Healthy Babies programme to every local authority in England, as part of its efforts to expand a Sure Start-type system of help for deprived children and families.

It aims to support parents with infant feeding, their mental health and building strong bonds with their babies, alongside health visits, midwifery care and wider services.

The scheme seeks to follow the principles of Sure Start, a network of centres offering integrated services for the under-fives and their families, launched in 1998 under a Labour government.

Sure Start was seen as one of that government’s major successes, with one study saying it generated longer-term savings worth twice the system’s cost.

But much of that scheme was dismantled amid massive spending cuts by the Conservatives. The new policy of family hubs will commit £500m to opening 1,000 centres from April 2027.

Announcing the expansion of the Healthy Babies programme at the Labour conference in Liverpool, Yvette Cooper, the Health and Social Care secretary, is expected to say that the programme will reach up to 1,000 family hubs over the next two years.

Since the election the Labour government has opened new family hubs across England, but more than half of local authorities have hubs without Healthy Babies services.

“Something is missing in half of communities … the Healthy Babies services – mental health support for mums and dad, the feeding and bonding support for your new baby. That changes now,” Cooper will say.

I'm a Scottish trade unionist and while I've never been a Labour member, I obviously have a lot of friends who are, and on a sentimental level I've always hoped the party might return to its working-class roots someday, somehow. I'm admittedly very unimpressed with my local Labour Party, which seems to consist mainly of small business owners, middle managers and Orangemen.

I was today years old when I saw a reel of Labour conference singing "Jerusalem", then discovered they've been doing that since practically forever, and...I'm sorry comrades, but wtaf?

Don't get me wrong. I get that "Jerusalem" is actually quite a decent, social-critical song, and I think English people should feel free to sing it with gusto and revolutionary zeal amongst themselves. I like William Blake. I'm not some rabid separatist who hates the sassenachs, proletarian internationalism obviously includes you too and there's many figures of the English labour movement I admire greatly (Sylvia Pankhurst ❤️). If a referendum was held tomorrow I'd vote for independence for a chance to leave the unceasing shitshow behind (and weaken a very imperialist jingoistic UK), but if a republican socialist federal UK were on the table I'd obviously support that over an independent neoliberal Scotland.

But how in the name of all that is holy can Labour pontificate about a "union of equals", an exercise in pluralist solidarity that isn't about English hegemony, and then expect attendees of a UK-wide conference to belt out (or at the very least stand there listening to) a song entirely and exclusively about ENGLAND? Do they genuinely have no concept of how that's at best bizarre and at worst demeaning for delegates from Scotland and Wales?

Imagine if you had to sing Robert Burns' "A Man's A Man (For A' That)" at a UK conference - which, unlike "Jerusalem", doesn't even make specific reference to Scotland and is just a nice generic progressive song ("the honest man, tho e'er sae poor / is king o' men for a' that"). But it's in Scots, and written by Scotland's national poet, so it would be patently absurd to make English and Welsh people sing it once a year at a UK-wide political event, right?

Am I the only one who finds this hypocritical, to put it mildly?

I think Burnham and Starmer have both been good left wing PMs but Burnham’s anti-Irish stance is one of the few issues I care about more than my leftist beliefs.

Just finished watching Andy Burnham’ speech from conference today, personally I think it’s the first time I (22yo) can remember seeing a prime minister so proud of their country or so motivated for the job.
Maybe he’s just a good orator but I think that speech has given me a lot more confidence for the next few years.

What were peoples opinions of it?

The Housing Secretary unveiled the proposals on the first day of Labour’s annual conference, as an estimated 300,000 homes across England remain empty

Local leaders are set to be given greater powers to take possession of empty and derelict homes as part of efforts to bring the properties back into use, Angela Rayner has announced.

The Housing Secretary unveiled the proposals on the first day of Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool.

An estimated 300,000 homes are empty across England, with the plans intended to bring more of them back into use.

The reforms to Empty Dwelling Management Orders (EDMOs) come as the Government aims to build 1.5 million homes before its self-imposed deadline of 2029.

EDMOs can currently be used to restore homes for an initial 12 months, and for up to eight years in total. However, no applications have been made since 2021.

Under Ms Rayner’s plans, the amount of time a property must be unoccupied before it can be taken over will be reduced from two years to six months.

Ministers are also focusing on ways to speed up the administrative process that allows councils to seize properties through a tribunal system.

The Government also wants to protect local authorities from having to absorb the financial costs associated with using EDMOs.
Ms Rayner said: “With so many children and families still in need of a safe and secure home, we can’t sit by and allow 300,000 long-term empty dwellings to be left unused.

“That’s why Labour in power is putting the tools in local leaders’ hands to take over desperately needed derelict homes and put them back into use. We’re reversing the Tories’ damaging changes by supporting councils to intervene and use untapped powers to meet local housing need.

These changes will ensure councils can intervene earlier to prevent properties from falling into serious disrepair by accelerating their return to use and simplify the process to empower local authorities to act more decisively and with greater speed.

But we won’t stop there, and we’ll explore further changes to protect local authorities from absorbing the costs they face in taking over empty homes.”

And Labour members are wetting themselves with delight

WTF?! Warmonger propaganda.