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The Conservatives’ new policy to abolish the Future Homes Standard, which supports the installation of solar panels on new homes in England, will lock millions of people into reliance on fossil fuels for their energy needs, energy experts have warned.
Households are currently set to benefit from lower energy bills and warmer homes under a ‘solar for all’ package in England. The Future Homes Standard will effectively require solar panels on all new homes from 2028.
The MCS Foundation has calculated that mandatory renewables on newbuilds will save the average household £1,300 a year.
Under the new rules, solar panels will become all but mandatory for newbuild properties, covering at least 40% of floor area (to ensure developers don’t just put on one or two token panels to meet the regulations).
Enhanced energy efficiency requirements will also mean cutting home carbon emissions by around three-quarters compared to one built to the 2013 Building Standards, slashing bills.
The Government says that the measures will make solar more accessible, including for renters, and cut energy costs for families. The Conservatives say it will crush housebuilding goals and drive up costs, announcing the plans at the party’s conference this week in Birmingham.
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Byline Times has previously reported on the Conservatives’ extensive financial ties to the fossil fuel industry, including donations made directly to leader Kemi Badenoch. In 2025 we found that Badenoch ditched the Conservative Party’s longstanding support for reaching Net Zero by 2050 after taking donations from key funders of a climate science denial group which has campaigned against the target.
Friends of the Earth’s senior campaigner, Sienna Somers, said: “The Conservatives’ latest attempt to cling onto relevance by taking a sledgehammer to our climate commitments and environmental protection agencies would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.
“The party is pitching its assault on environmental action as an offer to big business, which would give free rein to polluters. In the midst of a rapidly accelerating climate crisis this is clearly nonsensical.”
Dr Ellie Chowns MP, the leader of the Green group in Parliament, said it was shocking that after the summer’s wildfires and record temperatures, “the Tories have chosen this moment to make a bonfire of environmental standards, weaken climate protection, and abolish organisations charged with protecting nature”.
“Scrapping the rules that secure affordable homes, built to high energy-efficiency and environmental standards is a gift to profiteering developers. It would leave millions of people unable to afford a home and facing higher costs and energy bills,” Dr Chowns said.
And Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, said the Conservative announcements would “do nothing to encourage growth or deliver development”.
“Instead, they will expose the UK’s economy to dangerous weather, the UK’s food supplies to biodiversity collapse and UK homes to flooding and extreme heat,” Bennett added.
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Hooked on Gas
The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit’s head of energy, Jess Ralston, told Byline Times scrapping the Future Homes Standard would mean less certainty for thousands of small businesses across the country investing in the net zero technology boom, from insulation suppliers to solar panel and heat pump installers.
“It would also mean UK homes remaining dependent on gas for longer, which as the North Sea continues to decline irrespective of any new drilling, means greater reliance on Trump and vulnerability to the actions of Putin,” Ralston said.
She said the Conservative proposals would mean households would still be tied to volatile gas markets that have largely driven the cost of living crisis, whereas more electrification technologies mean prices are stabilised through British renewables.
“It’s hard to square scrapping this policy with pledges of economic growth, greater energy independence and lower bills,” the energy expert added.
The solar industry has also issued a robust response to the Conservative proposals, which include scrapping environmental watchdogs Natural England and the Environment Agency.
Solar Energy UK argues the changes – if housing became any cheaper as a result – would simply inflate housebuilders’ profit margins, to the public’s cost.
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“Everyone can see that solar and batteries are the quickest and most effective way for families to take back control of their energy bills. I would urge the Conservatives to reconsider abandoning a policy that they were instrumental in developing. It is far cheaper to design and build a new home with solar panels than having families pay to retrofit afterwards,” said Chris Hewett, chief executive of Solar Energy UK.
Hewett added: “Like having carpets, a fridge or indoor plumbing, generating your own power from your own roof is part of modern living. I am glad to say that more than half of new homes are already designed this way due to the regulatory standards that are in force already. Reversing course now makes no sense.”
The solar executive said the Future Homes Standard will help reduce reliance on imported natural gas by delivering decarbonised homes that are “cheaper to run and freer from geopolitical impacts”.
“Weaning ourselves off expensive gas is central to securing growth and protecting the economy from fossil-fuelled shocks,” Hewett said.
Cost to Households
The progressive IPPR think tank says the Future Homes Standard will save households hundreds of pounds on energy bills, meaning any saving on building or purchasing a house without solar will be more than offset by higher bills.
“The cost of integrating solar panels, batteries and heat pumps into new build homes is cheaper than retrofitting them later. Scrapping the standard passes higher costs onto households.
“The Conservative decision to scrap the original low carbon homes standard in 2015 has resulted in two million homes with higher bills than they could have done. We cannot have another lost decade of high bills,” said Josh Emden, IPPR’s programme lead for heat and industrial decarbonisation.
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Hannah Wall, community heat & energy project manager at climate charity Possible, said similarly, current household heating costs are “driven by international gas markets that we have no control over”.
“We need urgent action to tackle the ongoing crisis of homes which are poorly insulated and extremely expensive to keep at a comfortable temperature. Solar panels, low-carbon heating, and good-quality insulation are necessary measures.”
A Centre for Net Zero study, involving a randomised trial of 708 home solar and battery systems, found they cut net grid imports by 77% and bills by 62% over one year. The set-ups also cut peak-time consumption from the grid by 66% and still made a significant difference during the winter. Batteries, now typically included in solar installations, enable residents to benefit from cheap-rate tariffs when the grid is in surplus.
Together, wind and solar power has saved the UK from almost £6 billion of expenditure on gas since the Hormuz Crisis began, according to a recent analysis by Carbon Brief. Rooftop solar is seen as a key part of that mix.
A recent survey by More in Common found that more than half of Britons have either installed solar panels on their home or would like to, with little variation between political inclinations.
Simon Francis, coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, told this outlet the Conservative proposals were “a plan for poor housing and high bills”.
“We just can’t understand why, after so much work went into developing the Future Homes Standard over years and across different governments, they’re now looking at rowing back on something that was going to help ensure we don’t have a continuation of the poor-quality housing that has hurt so many households.
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“The Future Homes Standard was designed to make sure that every home that’s built is fit for the future and designed to keep running costs as low as possible. It definitely looks like it will hurt people moving into new builds if they go ahead with this.”
He also asked whether the Conservatives were being influenced by fossil fuel donors and developers. On housebuilders, Francis highlighted “an industry that might want to build homes in a cheaper way that will ultimately cost households in the long run through higher bills”.
Future Facing
The Future Buildings Standard will also effectively mandate the installation of rooftop solar panels on new commercial buildings in England. The Conservatives appear to have ignored it in their announcement.
Wales is going even further than England by making solar panels a ‘functional requirement’ for new buildings from March 2027, extending to new roofs and renovations a year later.
The Future Homes Standard regulations start to come into force on 24 March 2028 for most houses in England, and six months later for flats.
The rules require homes to emit at least 75% lower carbon emissions than under the 2013 Building Standards, effectively prohibiting fossil-fuelled heating, while effectively requiring solar panels to cover the equivalent of at least two-fifths of the floor area.
Byline Times has been blocked from Conservative Party conference.
Update 6 October: This piece has been amend to make clear the CNZ study involved a (708-strong) sample of 39,000 households, rather than 39,000 households overall.
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