Gordon Brown took on David Cameron for the green vote today with a series of energy-saving moves that he claimed would bring down the typical family bill by more than £200 a year.

After Mr Cameron announced measures to tackle climate change with plans to increase aviation taxes, the Chancellor adopted what officials said was a more voter-friendly approach by promising that every home would be properly insulated by 2010, with the work being done free for low-income families, and with discounts for the better off.

He said that Britain would phase out the domestic use of all old-fashioned lightbulbs by 2011. Retailers will be asked to remove “standby” facilities from televisions and DVD players to prevent electricity being wasted when they are left on during the night.

The clash between the parties came on the eve of tomorrow’s publication of the long-awaited Climate Change Bill which will contain a proposal for annual reports to Parliament on the Government’s progress towards meeting its climate change objectives.

While falling short of Conservative and green campaigners’ demands for annual emission targets, the system of annual reporting is a significant change by ministers.

Mr Brown indicated in his speech to the Green Alliance tonight that the Bill would create for the first time a system of five-year statutory carbon budgets placing an overall limit on emissions.

The budgets will be set after advice from an independent committee on climate change.

Mr Brown said it would be a “wholly new way” of managing the UK’s climate change effort, sustained by proper public accountability.

He added: “Just as we manage our financial budgets over the economic cycle with prudence and discipline, so we will manage our carbon budgets with the same prudence and discipline. Chancellors of the Exchequer will now count the carbon as they currently count the pounds.”

Mr Brown also said there would be new incentives for microgeneration such as solar water heating, micro wind turbines and ground source heat pumps, with the aim of an eightfold increase in the number of households which are producers as well as consumers of energy. He also announced he would be pushing for EU agreement to reduce VAT on energy saving products across Europe.

The Conservatives accused him of recycling old policies, and suggested he first produced his “insulation speech” 12 years ago.

Mr Brown has already announced a scheme to give pensioners free home insulation but today said it would be extended to some eight million homes and flats that needed it.

Both he and Tony Blair hit out at Mr Cameron’s plans to put VAT on aviation fuel and increasing air passenger duty.

Reporting to the Commons on last week’s EU summit, Mr Blair said a balance had to be struck, and that was why he was very dubious about Mr Cameron’s plans. “The problem is that we might hit our own consumers and businesses very hard in our country.”

He said they had to make sure they did not make British businesses uncompetitive or upset “our own consumers”.

Mr Blair added that binding annual targets were too inflexible.

“There can be changes in temperatures or costs or prices which make a really dramatic difference for the economy to cope with such a binding target.”

Mr Brown said Conservative policies on flights would do "huge damage to business and the consumer".

They were "ill-thought out and ill-considered", he added

The Treasury calculated that Mr Brown’s insulation plans would take an average of £160 off a household bill, the phasing out of lightbulbs would reduce it by £30, and the elimination of wasteful standby facilities would save £45. It claimed the package of measures would not just save 6 million tonnes of carbon, but £4.40 a week from a typical household energy bill.

George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, said the only thing about Mr Brown that was green was his recycling of policies. “He first started announcing insulation schemes 12 years ago to the day. He told us twice in the last year he wanted an end to TV standby buttons and his lightbulb plan is less ambitious than the one launched by the EU last Friday.”

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