Encourage landlords to offer energy-efficient homes with tax breaks – MPs

Encourage landlords to offer energy-efficient homes with tax breaks – MPs

0:02 AM, 17th April 2024, About 8 months ago

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The government is being urged to provide tax relief to private landlords who improve their rented property’s energy efficiency to reduce energy bills.

The call is being made by MPs of the Conservative Environment Network (CEN) who say the move will also reduce the UK’s reliance on imported gas, the Daily Mail reports.

This comes as other strategies to encourage homeowners to upgrade their homes are stumbling with a prediction that subsidised home insulation schemes will take years to be effective.

Now, environmentally conscious Conservatives want the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to adopt a strategy to encourage landlords to upgrade their rental properties.

‘Improving energy efficiency’

Former Deputy Prime Minister, Damian Green, said: “While the price of gas is now falling, improving energy efficiency is the only way to guarantee lower household bills permanently – by reducing the amount of gas we need to burn to stay warm.

“For both homeowners and renters, this also means lower household bills in the long term, reducing our emissions and saving households money.

“That is why the government should offer tax incentives to help people improve their energy efficiency, including landlords.”

He says that landlords should be encouraged to retrofit their houses and claim the energy efficiency improvement costs as a tax-deductible expense.

‘Increase investment in energy efficiency’

Sam Payne, CEN’s climate programme manager, told the newspaper: “With 70% of 2019 Conservative voters thinking the government should increase investment in energy efficiency, it is also a vote winner.

“There must be appropriate incentives, namely through tax cuts, to make it as cheap and easy for people to boost their homes’ energy efficiency.”

He added: “Making energy efficiency upgrades tax deductible for landlords is a straightforward way of encouraging these improvements in the private rented sector, to the benefit of both tenants through lower bills and of landlords through more valuable properties.”


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