you could start by getting the power companies to supply and fit solar panels or wind turbines to all coumcil houses and housing association houses as this would provide help to the poorer sections of our society, provide jobs in manufacturing and building, reduce consumption of foosil fuels and increase the development of greener power supplies for the future.

Just what does this Government mean by Zero carbon homes? Even cavemen lit fires so were not zero carbon rated. Every time you put a kettle on you are leaving a carbon footprint. This is typical of this Government spouting off so they make headlines without even the remotest idea of the whole concept of what they are saying. It is also impossible to build a zero carbon house. They spout ludicrous figures regarding how many of these houses will be built by 2016 but just ask the building industry who'll give a different answer. This is just another eye catching headline from Labour but I'll bet anyone now it wont happen by 2016. They are still allowing building of flood plains for goodness sake - I think that just about says it all concerning their commitment to the environment.

Eco Towns, great idea, not in my back yard, which happens to be int the countryside, I love here because i want peace and quiet, and sacrifice all the ameneites of a town, and do without alot of things, including a decent job, (despite taking a First) but this is my choice, please can you tell me what is so Eco about trashing the countryside around here? The only true eco thing to do is reduce our population.

The definition of Zero Carbon isn't clear, does it include construction, maintenance and demolishing? The government should really be talking in terms of the Whole Life Cycle Costs. As well as having a zero carbon foot print it MUST also be affordable. An affordable to a student with student debts, but who hasn't been able to get a highly skilled, high salary wage. It is possible to build properties that meet these criteria, but it is in the interest of landowners, developers and all of the financial institutions involved to have high house prices that continually rise. The government must put its foot down and insist on houses, with a garage, that have a zero carbon foot print.

Thankyou for allowing me to comment as I'm not a party member. My tendencies are towards an autonomous Scotland,that being said,I understand that opposition party's have huge responsibility in the good governance of the land,so I know there are troubles at present for the party,but you must all look to the future for it is truly bright,it has a big roll to play in the forming of the New Scotland and she would be bereft without you.

I see so what has this to do with greener homes.

Your not a memeber of what, what has this to do with homes, god almight.

Increasing the housing supply is definately nessasary in order to make the market more available to first time buyers, particulary those who have just left university and new families, is cruicial. I also think building them to a specification that would be considered "green" is a definate must. Zero-carbon homes would require not only the through life of them which is an issue for everybody from the owners responsibility to recyle, turn off lights, use resources less through to the local council operating an highly effective recycling policy, maintaining or contracting an effective maintaince policy of environmental intiatives through to central government to insure the renewable energy policy is being implimented effectively and providing legislation to ensure that certain green policies such as making it legal that all appliances have to meet A or A* energy effeciency which would lead to the developemnt of beeter energy effecient products and reduce the actual cost of the products to be more affordable to the average joe. But another aspect is ensuring that the building process is also zero-carbon as well. One way to insure this in the local area is to increase the planting of trees and plants to offset the carbon producing machineary and transport for the builders to the site etc. as well as for the through life carbon emissions from building by integrating energy efficient carbon reducuing methods into the home such as solar pannelled roofs as well as cost effective insulation and triple glazing in all new builds and to include Another relatively new technology such as the use of non-standby intelligent plugs which can reduce the cost of energy bills and carbon emissions while the house is being supplied by non renewable resources. These plugs can reduce the energy consumption by around 20% for fridges and new media/pc intelligent plugs only supply power when needed and so no energy is effectively wasted! Finally a fully effective recycling programme within the homes whereby kitchens in new builds are designed intelligently to make disposal of recylable materials more easy for the average person who would normally just throw away a plastic bottle or a tin can. And while this may seem far far into the future a simple economies of scale would come into effect in reducing the cost of all of these planet, money, energy and carbon reducing initiavtives. So I do think the plan for 2016 that includes the majority of the stakeholders is good but I think that to have a truely zero carbon green home governement will need to invest in local home energy supplies such as house fixed solar panels and wind turbines which could then be connected to the national grid and any energy created you don't use the homeowner gets a rebate on what the energy bill is which in turn could reduce the dependancy on external sources of energy and limit the number of nuclear power stations that need to be built while expanding urban wind turbines and solar panels as well as offshore wind farms developing HEP technology and wave/tidal technology for coastal regions. Its the saying in geography that springs to mind while I write this "Think gloabally, act locally" - which applys to this country think on the big scale of the UK energy supply and act on a small scale by developing homes intelligently that include all the energy saving measures while simulateously acting on the same small scale prodviding mini urban wind turbines and solar panels all connected to the national grid to determine how much actual large scale power stations need to be built and that way a new UK energy policy is created while including affordable zero-carbon housing and securing our energy supply indefinately without reliance on external sources except for our cars which could by that time run on hydrogen fuel cells and emit water.

The most efficient houses are generally speaking self-build homes. What is to be done to help individuals build their own homes? When are individuals going to be re-given the ability to build anywhere in the countryside as we had before the second world war? Precisely nothing and sometime never it seems from these proposals. I live on an ex-council estate in Scotland, every estate around is privately built and has gas which can be used efficiently with the correct boiler, our estate doesn't, it has only electric. It is the same up and down the country where the poor are offered the most expensive and carbon inefficient option, electricity, and the richer are offered the least expensive options. Until absolutely basic things like this are sorted out we’ll never get anywhere. Let's face it professional politicians which is what we mostly have in this country from whichever party are simply not up to having technical ideas and acting on such basic engineering things. They are generally ex-lawyers, ex-trades-union activist or ex some other job no-one else does. Unfortunately for the 98% of our representatives who know nothing about engineering, ex-welders with big mouths are not engineers, the world is increasingly an engineered place and increasingly we in the labour party should be choosing engineers as candidates and not ex-lawyers, teachers or any of the huge plethora of other “professions” who know nothing, precisely nothing, about how this screen works you are looking at right now for example. You want to reduce the UK’s carbon footprint? Here are a list of things the government could do tomorrow. 1. Provide absolutely free insulation from B&Q, Homebase etc. Don’t bother checking where it goes once it leaves the shop just make 50 rolls free on proferring a British passport. If the insulation is taken abroad (unlikely) it will still be used for insulation so why bother checking? 2. Insist that NO new houses or flats have electric heating. Electric heating is on average only 30% efficient when generation and transmission losses are taken into account. 3. Insist that where gas cannot be installed in an estate that space heating for all houses are via electric driven air/air heat pumps within five years. For a typical small three bedroom house the cost of the pumps and three heaters are roughly £2.4k total and they provide 7.5kW of heating output power for less than 2kW power input almost every day of the year. Installation time approx two days per house. 4. Free up ALL land in the countryside for house-building, the only constraints being that your build does not block access to ground you do not own so that land is also available for future builds and that half of all gardens are to be allowed to go wild. Farming has already destroyed the British countryside so let’s reclaim it from those vandals. The UK has the highest percentage of land under farming of any comparable Western European country. 5. Point out the benefits of simple measures such as heavy curtains and draught reduction measures and again where possible make these items free where possible on the same basis as for insulation. 6. Regulate the installers so that they are simply not allowed to rip people off. For example I was quoted £4k for a 2 man-day installation of the heat pump system mentioned above ie almost twice what the heat pump system cost. Such overcharging is precisely what is preventing people and the planet benefiting from the existing technologies. Remember the huge difference between this country and the rest of Europe when it comes to efficient engineered homes is land price. The average cost of an acre of land across Europe is no more than the cost of a good brand new car, around £30- 35k. That same plot in the UK would cost you £200- 250k in most areas so that is £170k in some land-owner’s back pocket that could be benefiting the public and the environment. When the chairman of Scandia Hus homes, high efficiency German made kit homes, was asked why they had a huge proportion of the German market and so little of the UK market the chairman cited this land price difference as the reason. Again, the UK has more land under farming than any other comparable European country so why is building land so expensive? To protect a few nimbys in big expensive houses in the countryside? Until labour challenge the status quo across the board we are going nowhere but down the plughole of political history. Gordon can talk all he wants but he has to take on ALL of the vested interests, especially in the under-performing public services, and he has to win. He has to stop congratulating people on a job well done and start telling them the truth, we all know public services are over-blown and simply don’t work, even those who work in them.

Farming is private owned land, you cannot just take it away from farmers. Before showing your ignorance in who caused the destruction (definitely not farmers) do your homework. Frankly, this government has destroyed farmers and farmland, especially Madame Beckett, but since you want to take farmland, just where do you think you'll get food. Waitrose, M&S .... wake up ... milk doesn't come from a bottle, it originally comes from a cow!

Although the concept of building zero carbon "new-towns" appears to be a noble one, the way in which it has been pursued is far from ideal. Already there are nearly 60 proposed sites of development across the country put forward by organisations who care little for the environment and a lot for the potential money to be made. Some of these sites have had planning applications for development turned down in the past, however they consider it worth applying again in the hope that the positive spin of "zero-carbon" and eco-friendly will defeat all opposition. The reality is that most of these development companies do not have the means to pursue their plans to completion. The trendy looking houses in their brochures are meaningless because all that they are really after is the right to build on land which they can sell off to the highest bidder. The phrase "eco-town" will be a laughable embarrasment to the Labour Party when ultimately they will be simply Barrat and Wimpey style home developments that will only compete with previous "new-towns" such as Milton Keynes and Warrington in terms of a desirable place to live. The real concern is the decision making process that will be pursued in picking 10 out of the 60 proposed sites to go ahead with. The Labour Party must already be aware of the local opposition they will get in many of these sites. Is it the case that they will select all 10 of the sites on the basis of reasoned arguments? Or will they in effect sweep the potential loss of votes under the carpet with a bias towards development in Tory/Lib Dem wards? It'll be interesting to see in January 2008. In summary this is a policy which, despite the noble ideas behind it, is very likely to be a travesty for all concerned apart from the development companies.

its a bad thing when our own party cannot take any form of critisism are we now being ruled by big brother?

An ordinary man who works all hours god sends will soon never be able to buy his own home. Its a strugle to pay to get to work with ever increasing road tax and fuel prices. Labour have changed a lot of things in ther time howevre they have changed the wrong things and opted to help the rich get more. They are looking for ever increasing ways to get your spare money with stealth taxes they shpuold rember that biting the hand that feeds you only ends up in tears

while having a family discussion with my grown up children i as a life time member explained the reasons to vote labour and what money has benn brought into the north west by what ever means such as the mellenium dome £900 million new national stadium ££££ possibly spin off from olympics but which ever way i put points forward it is obvious that this labour party has no interest what so ever on conditions in the north except for armed forces recruitment

Gavin, its not about being able to afford your own home, its about providing a standard of living that is suitable at this time. If you earn minimum wage it has to be expected that you wont be able to afford a £250k detatched house, unless you have been deprived the opportunity to improve your life via further education, training courses etc which lets be fair is now pretty much available to everyone. I come from a single parent family in a somewhat run-down area, I went to Uni, put in the effort and have now managed to progress in my career to the point where I now have a nice home car etc, at no point did I feel I had a right to this, it was a reflection of the effort I had put in. Also, I would be interested to know what Labour has done to help the rich get richer? I dont consider myself "rich" however I am comfortable and I cant help but feel the more I earn the worse the tax burden gets. For example, at the moment I am a higher rate tax payer and I am also still paying back my student loan, therefore, my effective tax rate at the top end is 50% (40% IT, 1% NIC, 9% SL) plus the guts of £2k Council Tax for a Band E property, hardly being bankrolled by the state!! Lets be honest, the alternatives to Labour are laughable, in Scotland we have the SNP who tried to capture the vote of the younger generation by claiming to scrap Student Loan balances if they won. Now they have won they have decided not to, that was the reason I never voted for them in the first place, because as bad a job as you feel Labour may have done...the others will be a lot worse in my eyes. The house price arguement is a non-starter in my eyes, merely a reflecation of a successful economy! All the best Peter

Well yes OK, so all of the UK get educated all get nice jobs all earn a good living, and then who is going to remove your bins, who is going to do the jobs the rich take for granted, yet these people need to live.

Treborc, thats not what the discussion is about. A binman or street cleaner will earn a wage, maybe not a great wage, however, just because they have a job doesn't mean they should be able to buy their own home. I really want an Aston Martin Vanquish, however I have to settle for a Ford Mondeo as thats what I can afford...will I start moaning at Aston Martin because I cant afford to buy one of their cars? Lower earners receive plenty of financial help, especially those with families etc.

Peter, your argument is bizarre. You really feel that your desire for a high end sports car should be equated to someone's desire own their own home? The reality is that despite all the sloganeering and promises of our Labour government, the gulf between rich and poor (and even the middle classes and the poor) has grown, not diminished.

Well as i said before many times we have idiots in all parts of society. You talk about cars when we are talking about the rights of about 60% of the country to own a home, and your talking about sports cars talk about bigots.

It's all very well lauding greener homes, but this lot haven't got a clue. I bought my home under a tory government.I hated the tories but I was still able to buy my own home. This lot have alienated practically everyone,and put home ownership out of the reach of ordinary people, except the RICH!

David, Not sure what point you are making, would you have preferred lower house price growth in order for everyone to be able to afford to buy their home? Supply and demand dictates house prices, an increasing population combined with a general desire in the UK to own your own home has created the inflation issue. Affordable housing is now required in virtually every planning application, not sure what else can be done as even the affordable houses start to catch up. Maybe we should hope for the dark days of the 80s with negative equity and mass repossessions??? All the best Peter

The point I'm trying to make Peter is that labour has done nothing for ordinary people, in fact they seem to be closer to the tory's than cameron.Who really gains when house prices are high? Solicitors, estate agents and banks/building society's.Labour did away with tax relief on mortgages and has made it practically impossible for ordinary people to buy their own home.

Lets see I was talking to an MP who said Labour are looking at building prefabs again. they said they should never of got rid of this sturdy buildings, I wonder how many rich people will live in prefabs but then again the poor might.

this is all well and good but how much is going to be enough socail housing of this kind for people to rent not just buy or is it all gonna be for the middle class.