Earlier this week a leaked document allegedly written by a senior advisor to David Cameron claimed UK energy bills could rocket by £300 a year – purely as a result of green initiatives.

The memo appears to expose an increasing rift between the Treasury run by chancellor George Osborne and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)

However, new figures released today (September 7) show almost 300,000 insulation measures, such as loft and cavity wall insulation, have been carried out in British homes over the past three months alone.

This means now means more than half of British homes (58%) have both loft and cavity wall insulation saving their occupants more than £100 according to Mr Huhne.

Mr Huhne has also warned the ‘Big Six’ energy suppliers they are at risk of missing the ‘tough’ home energy efficiency targets and need to double their insulation rates.

The energy minister said: “More and more people realise that insulation can save you money and make your home cosier.

“More than £100 can be knocked off your bill if you get your loft lagged and cavity walls filled and thanks to tough government targets for the ‘Big Six’ energy companies, consumers can get free or discounted insulation.

“But these stats also show that energy companies need to pull their finger out and get on with offering even more energy saving help to British households.

“The companies have made good progress to date and we want them to succeed, but they are going to have to accelerate their lagging rates if they’re each going to hit their targets by the end of the next year.”

Energy companies were told by the coalition in July last year to increase the help available to people to insulate their homes.

According to the DECC figures around 3.5M homes are set to benefit by December 2012 as a result of the tougher Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT), which forces energy suppliers to meet a carbon emission reduction target of 293M lifetime tonnes of CO2 by December 2012.

Luke Walsh

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