Green councillors plan to sue the Government for millions of pounds in compensation if subsidies for solar schemes are cut.

Brighton and Hove City Council leader Bill Randall also said jobs would be lost if a leaked Government report on cuts to feed-in tariffs is confirmed today (October 31).

Reports suggest the return for customers with solar panels selling electricity to the National Grid will be cut by more than half for anyone installing new equipment after December 8.

Experts say this will result in households taking 18 years to make their money back on their investments, instead of the current ten-year estimate.

Councillor Randall said the proposed cut would “seriously damage” the authority’s multimillion pound programme to fit solar panels on public buildings and council houses.

He said: “A tariff reduction of this size threatens our plans to roll out eco-friendly energy that will help provide cheaper heating and electricity for the city’s most vulnerable at a time of rising energy costs.

“We were looking to this programme to partly offset government cuts to our budget, whilst also reducing our carbon footprint, tackling fuel poverty and creating local jobs.”

Solar electricity producers currently get approximately 43.3p for every kilowatt hour (kWh) of solar electricity they produce.

The new proposals would see the returns reduced to about 21p per kWh.