Schools and hospitals are to be given solar panels to bring down their costs but where is the government’s help for people with high energy bills? And what is the ultimate value to the public?

The initial plan is to put solar panels on 200 schools and 200 hospitals, concentrating on areas with the highest need for help paying the bills.

But does this mean solar panels will go on the roofs of schools and hospitals that were funded by the Private Finance Initiative (PFI)? If so, it is currently unclear whether these assets will be retained by the NHS or benefit the private companies that originally funded the construction work, when these buildings are handed over to full public control.

Transparency is needed – to ensure that public funds provide long-term benefits for the NHS rather than boosting private profits. And This Writer isn’t seeing any from Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.

Worse still is the fact that this is happening while calls for measures to help UK citizens cope with high energy bills are being ignored.

Campaigners have spent years calling for large-scale insulation schemes that would bring every dwelling-place in the UK up to a high standard of heat retention, cutting waste and thereby reducing energy bills. But organisations like Insulate Britain have been vilified by politicians and the press.

And campaigns have also called for widespread, subsidised solar panel installation schemes, to make it possible for families to bring down their energy bills while actually providing energy for the country as a whole.

What is the UK’s Labour government saying, by spending £180 million on solar panels for its own assets while ignoring the needs of the people?

There is no benefit to the public from schools and hospitals that have lower energy costs while the high cost of living leaves the rest of us freezing or starving.

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