@Jonas Taylor
"The solar subsidies were a step in the right direction and they were being used by councils to help lift some of the poorest families out of fuel-poverty, yet now the government has backed down and taken illegal action to prematurely reduce subsidies"
There are two themes to this argument - your like of this subsidy and your dislike ot this government.
Perhaps you could explain why these subsidies were a step in the right direction?
£12,000, your figure, is a lot of money. How does spending this alleviate fuel poverty?
At £500/year (in current cost terms) that's a 24 year subsidy directly to the fuel poor (I digress to mention there is only poverty not the hypothecated BS of fuel poverty) .
Then the greater the install base the higher the cost of conventional electricity to everyone including the "fuel poor" (the, admittedly unachieveable, end case would be everyone paying the subsidy to themselves, but poor people in the lower decks of blocks of flats would be worst hit).
What about "green" - do you have any input costs for PV? end of life disposal costs? One figure I heard/read (I can't substantiate) is that the input energy costs (not total environmetal costs) for PV is about eight years of output - let's hope that if I'm right that's not peak output.
The subsidy is only green if it is subsequently used for low carbon expenditure.
What about "jobs"? The stuff is all made elsewhere (only assembled here), so it does little for manufacturing ermployment. if the installation jobs only exist because of the ridiculous subsidies then why not pay people to do something more societally useful? Such as repair delapidated homes that are energy black holes? Make them more energy effiicient? Reduce energy usage (er, as in real "green"), Reduce fuel poverty buy reducing energy requirements?
But no, lets carry on with this regressive (look at the install base, look at who's paying, look at who's financing) ridiculous scheme because you don't lke this government - hurrah for your politics.
BTW the green deal was also started under the previous administration but was not seen as sexy by _any_ of the gutless bandwagon jumping backbenchers never mind the Islington socialist pushing FiTs at the time (the one currently considered so good at his job that even his own party think he's crap)
(see previous post, not in government (nor anywhere else remotely connected to all this)
PS: Are you are an installer? If so, shouldn't you declare?