Op Ed: Slugs Voting for Salt - Killing the CCA Hurts Everyone

Kemi Badenoch announced she wants to repeal the Climate Change Act 2008 (CCA) the law that makes our carbon budgets binding and anchors the UK’s 2050 net-zero target. It played well to some headlines. But to most in the retrofit and construction trades it sounds suspicious, it's not chant for the pitch.

The CCA is not a climate slogan. It’s the contract that lets business model long-term returns. Remove it and every retrofit job, every industrial conversion plan, every skills course starts to look like a maybe-project.

“The Climate Change Act is the foundation on which the UK’s leadership on climate action has been built.” - Climate Change Committee

Voters can see the weather. They can feel the bills.

You don’t have to be a Greenpeace donor to notice flood claims going up and summer heat-waves hitting sites. You don’t have to be a policy nerd to know your boiler gas bill is an injection you'd rather not have.

“UK insurers paid a record £585 million in weather-related home claims in 2024.” Association of British Insurers

Voters know what they can see and touch. Climate damage is visible. Heating a cold home costs real money. Jobs in fitting better kit pay better than jobs in waiting rooms at the Job Centre.

Polling backs this up:

61% of British adults support keeping the 2050 net-zero target - YouGov March 2025

65% of homeowners say they intend to make their homes greener over the next decade NatWest Greener Homes Tracker 2025

People are sceptical about whether government will deliver – but they do not want the goal scrapped. They want cheaper bills, warmer homes, and a straight path to get there.

The UK’s green economy is already a job machine

This isn’t future-tense. It’s on the books:

£69.4 billion turnover and 272,000 FTE jobs in the UK low-carbon economy in 2022 - ONS LCREE 2024

~£83 billion GVA and 951,000 jobs supported in the wider net-zero economy by 2024, growing 9% year-on-year ECIU/CBI 2024 report

CBI analysis finds those jobs pay £10,000 more on average than regional medians. In other words: it’s the opposite of a “green levy”; it’s a better-paid work boom.

Pull the statutory plug and you pull the investment plug. You don’t save money; you punched the money maker in the face.

Demand is there – what’s missing is confidence

“Consumers need trustworthy information and simple, consistent support schemes.” - Energy Saving Trust evidence to Parliament 2025

“Awareness of low-carbon heating is now high and stable; intention is shaped by cost and confidence.” - DESNZ Public Attitudes Tracker 2025

Every installer reading this knows the dance: Clients ask, then hesitate.
Finance sniffs the risk.
Grant rules change.
Projects stall.

The law is the signal. It tells markets, finance, supply-chains: this direction will stick. Repeal that and you tell households: wait and see. Want to learn how instability wrecks an economy - look at US job figures versus ours.

Investment and insurance hate policy whiplash

The Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority has warned repeatedly that transition risk - policy flip-flops that strand assets - is a material threat to financial stability.

“Delaying or disorderly transition increases costs and risks to the financial system.” - BoE Climate Biennial Exploratory Scenario 2024

Property and plant that fail efficiency standards become hard to finance or insure.
The CCC, CRREM pathways and new disclosure rules all point the same way.

You cannot plan a 15-year asset against a 15-month policy mood swing. And we know stranded assets are a bell weather of the future.

The industrial heartlands have most to lose

HyNet in the North West, the East Coast Cluster in Teesside and Humber, offshore-wind fabrication yards on the Humber, hydrogen projects in the Midlands – all need policy credibility to reach the Final Investment Decision (FID).

“The HyNet project is expected to create or safeguard up to 12,000 jobs in the North West during build-out.” – HyNet North West Economic Impact Study 2024

PwC’s Green Jobs Barometer 2024 shows the fastest growth in net-zero jobs is outside London – in the very industrial heartlands politicians say they want to ‘level-up’.

Rip out the statutory anchor and OEMs and utilities will move the factory line somewhere steadier. That isn’t levelling-up; it’s levelling-out.

Why pitch repeal anyway? - Follow the incentives

Electoral Commission records and DeSmog UK investigations have documented long-running funding flows from individuals tied to fossil-linked or climate-sceptic interests into Conservative party coffers. Free-market think-tanks and aligned media keep a steady drum-beat that “targets kill growth.”

For a politician in opposition, testing a repeal line offers:

• a sharp dividing line in the news cycle
• a dog-whistle to Reform-leaning voters
• a way to squeeze internal rivals

That’s culture-war calculus, not growth strategy. If you bite you'll be put on the leash.

The splits inside the Conservative family

“Repealing the CCA would be catastrophic for the UK’s international reputation.” Theresa May, former PM, Oct 2025

“It would deter investment and cost us jobs.” Sir Alok Sharma, COP26 President (Conservative), Oct 2025

“The Climate Change Act is world-leading - we dismantle it at our peril.” Lord Deben, former CCC Chair, Oct 2025

The Conservative Environment Network still counts dozens of Tory MPs backing market-led climate solutions. Repeal talk splits the party from its own economic modernisers.

When a party fights itself in public, investors take cover.

The trade reality: CBAM doesn’t care about slogans

The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism will bite in 2026-27.
The UK plans its own CBAM from 2027.

A UK that weakens its climate law raises friction for every steel, glass, fertiliser and cement exporter selling into the single market. That isn’t deregulation; it’s a self-imposed tariff. If we learned nothing from Brexit. Barriers, cost, money.

The macro and fiscal bottom line

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s 2025 Fiscal Risks Report reduced the long-term fiscal cost of net-zero relative to earlier estimates, emphasising that credible policy cuts costs. Instability is the real green levy.

What this means for you – the retrofit trade

• Installers and SMEs - your order book lives or dies on client confidence.
• Manufacturers and suppliers - your finance costs depend on policy predictability.
• Homeowners - grants, standards and stable supply chains lower prices over time; flip-flops do the opposite.

This is not about “woke vs common sense.” It is about whether the rules of the market are steady enough for everyone to plan.

The plain-sight truth voters already know

Climate change is no longer an abstraction. The cost of heating draughty homes is no longer tolerable. Good-paying work in upgrading them is already here. Political posturing that trashes the legal framework is a direct threat to all three.

Most voters can join the dots. They may be angry about many things - immigration, housing, the NHS - but they don’t want to blow up the bridge to cheaper bills and better jobs.

“Repeal would be like slugs voting for salt.” – (a retrofit contractor in Birmingham, quoted at UK Construction Week 2025)

Go To Sleep On This

The culture-war frame around “net zero” is theatre. The Climate Change Act is a piece of economic plumbing. You don’t fix a leak by smashing the pipe.

For Britain’s retrofit sector – the installers, specifiers, surveyors, finance partners, local authorities – the ask is simple: demand certainty. It’s the cheapest material in the build.