The consumer magazine Which arranged a special Green Deal question and answer session with Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change that can be seen in full on the DECC website – www.decc.gov.uk/greendeal
The government is said to be close to introducing Green Deal, which basically is a new type of loan to help people make energy saving improvements to their homes.
It is suggested that by making energy efficiency measures more accessible to the nation’s homeowners, government hopes to lower carbon emissions across the UK to help consumers save money on their energy bills.
In the Q&A session Ed Davey 
points out, that people do want to have warmer, cosier homes, and save money from their gas and electricity bills which is the starting place for this initiative.
But what makes the Green Deal different, according to Davey is that people want have to pay upfront and will often do green deal improvements as part of a wider home improvement idea they had already – whether it’s a new bathroom or even decorating. Plus, there will be far more firms looking for business in this new market, promoting the benefits.
Many different questions were asked such as is it going to be made clear to consumers that there will be interest charges of 7% p/a on top of the payback electricity charge?
Davey’s answer was that the market will deliver the actual interest rates. “But”, he said, “in all our discussions with the industry and financing experts, and in our modeling, the range looked at goes from 6.5% to 8% – with our central estimate at 7.5% – those are fixed long term.
“Given that these are unsecured loans, those are highly competitive, and much lower than many people would get from the wider unsecured credit market.”
Another question concerned what security is in place to stop the cowboy operators muscling in the Green Deal energy efficiency home improvement?
Davey explained: “We’ve built in consumer protections from the start and consulted widely. We’ve started with the existing basic consumer protections, available from general consumer protection and consumer credit law, and enhanced them.
“So there’s a long list – a green deal quality mark, a green deal oversight body, a clear complaints procedure, a green deal ombudsman, rules on disclosures, the “golden rule”, etc, etc.
“We have of course had to balance protections against cost – we would kill the market if we over-regulated. But we feel the balance is right, and consumers will get a good green deal.”
You can find out what other answers Ed Davey gave to would be Green Deal-ers by linking with the web address below.
More information: www.decc.gov.uk/greendeal