An elderly lady holding a cup of tea at home in Liverpool with her electric fire on
THE Warm Homes Plan should be judged on how much it cuts fuel poverty rather than focusing on technical targets, campaigners urged the government yesterday.
The £13.2 billion scheme aims to improve energy efficiency in five million homes by 2030.
End Fuel Poverty Coalition has written to energy minister Miatta Fahnbulleh, outlining key recommendations to ensure it delivers for those most in need.
Campaigners suggest that the scheme’s success should not be judged by how many insulation measures are installed, or homes moved to EPC band C, but by how far it goes in ending fuel poverty.
About five million households in Britain are trapped deep fuel poverty, according to a University of York study.
Simon Francis, co-ordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition (EFPC), said: “Cold homes cause suffering, cost lives and drive up costs for the NHS.
“The Warm Homes Plan can be the solution — but only if it’s designed around the real needs of people, not just technical targets.”
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) speaks at Ritchie Coliseum on the campus of the University of Maryland on June 24, 2024 in College Park, Maryland. (Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“Today’s mass layoffs of NOAA staff signals a grim new reality: one where career federal scientists will be recklessly discarded,” said one campaigner.
Critics on Thursday decried the Trump administration’s firing of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration staffers, part of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency’s plan to eviscerate the federal government.
Following the playbook of Project 2025, a blueprint for gutting the federal government, the Commerce Department this week fired hundreds of NOAA staffers, many of them specialized climate scientists and weather forecasters.
In addition to issuing weather watches and warnings, NOAA monitors and studies the planet’s climate.
We’re mobilizing scientists to protect NOAA and we need you too. Get involved:
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-Md.) office said in a statement that the senator stressed that the firings “would be plainly unlawful and pointed to the Merit Service Protection Board’s decision yesterday that stayed the terminations of multiple federal employees on probationary status.”
“I take this opportunity to remind the department of its legal obligation to notify the Senate and House Committees on Appropriations regarding the large-scale termination of employees,” the senator added. Specifically, Section 505 of Title V, Division C of Public Law 118–42—a provision of the American Relief Act, 2025 (Public Law 118–158)—states, in part:
None of the funds provided under this act, or provided under previous appropriations acts to the agencies funded by this act that remain available for obligation or expenditure in fiscal year 2024… shall be available for obligation or expenditure through a reprogramming of funds that… reduces by 10% funding for any program, project, or activity, or numbers of personnel by 10%; or…results from any general savings, including savings from a reduction in personnel, which would result in a change in existing programs, projects, or activities as approved by Congress; unless the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations are notified 15 days in advance of such reprogramming of funds.
“Other agencies in my subcommittee’s jurisdiction have cited ‘ poor performance‘ to move forward with drastic layoffs,” Van Hollen added. “This has been exposed as a lie. Many terminated probationary employees have already come forward with evidence of recent glowing performance reviews, laying bare the flimsy pretext of these firings as gross misrepresentations of fact. The department must not become a purveyor of such lies and must comply with its legal obligations.”
Juan Declet-Barreto, senior social scientist for climate vulnerability in the Climate and Energy Program at Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that “today’s mass layoffs of NOAA staff signals a grim new reality: one where career federal scientists will be recklessly discarded, and the lifesaving science they do will be significantly undermined.”
“When testifying under oath, Howard Lutnick assured congressional members that if confirmed as commerce secretary, NOAA wouldn’t be dismantled under his watch—a promise that was broken today,” Declet-Barreto added. “It seems either Lutnick willingly lied to Congress and the American people or that he has caved in record-breaking time to the destructive agenda of the Trump-Musk regime.”
Oceana U.S. vice president Beth Lowell said that “our oceans have become political carnage, but the real victims are hardworking Americans—the people you care about—and our future generations.”
“These are American jobs that warn us about severe weather, protect our most vulnerable marine life like whales and turtles, ensure abundant fisheries, and maintain a healthy ocean for those whose livelihoods depend on it,” Lowell added. “We’re calling on Congress to save NOAA from these disastrous cuts, while also protecting American jobs, communities, and the oceans.”
More than 2,000 scientists have signed a letter to members of Congress and the Commerce Secretary urging protection of NOAA.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
LABOUR’S leadership is offering “dangerous false solutions” to the crisis-hit NHS, campaigners warned today after Sir Keir Starmer said the health service must “reform or die.”
Jeremy Corbyn’s successor told the BBC that the NHS should always be free at the point of use, but that there is also a “role for the private sector,” including with help clearing massive waiting lists.
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The Socialist Health Association, Labour’s affiliated socialist society for healthcare and medical professionals, said Sir Keir is “right that the Tory-damaged NHS is in urgent need of repair.”
But the group stressed that his solutions “are all wrong.
“After over a decade of Conservative austerity, with staff leaving in droves amid real-terms pay cuts of up to 26 per cent since 2010, the NHS is desperately in need of more funding.
“Instead, the Labour leadership is offering bromides and dangerous false solutions. For Keir Starmer to advocate self-referrals for internal bleeding is a recipe for disaster that will waste resources and cost lives.
An elderly lady holding a cup of tea at home in Liverpool with her electric fire on
