My Lords, I support the amendment. I put my name to it because I believe that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, we have an opportunity to ensure that the proposed 1 million new homes are not just suitable for their immediate occupants but for the long term. I declare an interest as a member of the Committee on Climate Change and the chair of its adaptation sub-committee. The committee, established under the Climate Change Act 2008, is the statutory body that provides advice to the Government on how to achieve the legally binding target, already referred to, of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. The adaptation sub-committee advises the Government on how to prepare for the inevitable impacts of climate change.
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I thank the Minister for the meeting we had on 3 February and the associated exchange of letters. In my capacity as chair of the adaptation sub-committee, I wrote to the Minister on 21 December to set out my concerns. I said in my letter:
“Housing built now will exist for many decades, if not a century or more. Choices on where to build, how homes are insulated, are heated in winter and kept cool in summer will have lasting consequences and will be difficult and costly to change. There is an opportunity through this Bill to make sure that the aspiration to build an extra one million homes by 2020 does not come at the expense of burdening their occupants with long-term costs and climate impacts, whilst also rendering the UK’s statutory greenhouse gas emissions targets more difficult to achieve. We have to be confident that the new homes will be as energy and carbon efficient as possible, whilst also resilient to the impacts of climate change”.
I went on to say, specifically about heating and energy efficiency, the purpose of this amendment:
“In ending the programme of work and policies associated with Zero Carbon Homes the Government threw away many cost-effective aspects that had widespread industry support. The EU Energy Performance Directive from 2021 will introduce a ‘nearly zero energy’ requirement. The Bill should build”—
excuse the pun—
“towards this by requiring new homes to go beyond the current Part L requirements”.
As an aside, Part L requirements are the part of building regulations that deal with conservation of fuel and power, dating to 2006. I went on to say:
“At the same time, the new housing should begin to achieve the widespread adoption of low carbon heating that is needed. The uptake of low carbon heat should be consistent with what is needed to meet the fourth carbon budget”,
which has been legislated and is now binding on the Government.
The matter is really very simple. Why build homes now that will not be fit for purpose in a few years’ time? To me, it is a no-brainer—we should be thinking
of the future. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, it is not as though the industry objected to the concept of zero-carbon homes; in fact, there was widespread support. When the initiative was abolished, Kate Henderson, chief executive of the Town and Country Planning Association, said:
“The cancellation of the policy marks the end of any benchmark for building the high quality, sustainable homes that we so desperately need”.
Paul King, managing director of sustainability, communications and marketing for the developer Lendlease Europe, said:
“Industry needs as much policy clarity and consistency as possible in order to invest and innovate, and after almost 10 years of commitment and progress, UK house builders and developers have come a very long way. It is therefore extremely disappointing that the Government has today removed a World-leading ambition for all new homes to be zero carbon from 2016”.
So we have support for this; it is a no-brainer to prepare these homes for the future. Why should we not do it? Is it cost effective to build to a higher energy standard? My understanding is that under most likely scenarios, the extra building costs will be in the order of a few thousand—1% or 2% of the total cost of a new home. We heard much in earlier debates on the Bill about the affordability of housing. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, has said, affordability is not just about the cost of purchasing the house but also of maintaining it, heating it and of retrofit if, in a few years’ time, we decide that standards have to be increased.
The Minister’s reply of 25 February to my letter and our meeting was somewhat less than clear. I hope that some clarification will be shed on it at the end of this debate. I quote what I think she said on energy efficiency as follows:
“During the last Parliament the standards were raised by 30%—most recent uplift only coming into effect in April 2014. This has been a big ask of the industry, which is why we are not taking forward a further uplift this year. We have also said that we will keep energy requirements under review”.
But I think there has been enough review. We do not need to keep it under review; we need to act now through the Bill to bring about the necessary change.
I hope that the Minister will not only clarify the contents of the letter but will reconsider the Government’s position and accept the principle of this amendment. To summarise, there are three reasons for that. First, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, in order to meet our legally binding greenhouse gas emissions target, we will need to reduce the one-third of our emissions that come from buildings, two-thirds of those from homes. We have many old and poorly insulated homes that are proving hard to retrofit, so building new homes that are not of the highest possible energy efficiency, including the use of low-carbon heating, will simply make it more difficult to meet the 2050 target. If the Government are not prepared to add this amendment to the Bill, they should explain where else the savings are going to come from in meeting our 2050 target.
The second point is that the new homes will be cheaper to run if they are built to the highest energy-efficiency standard, reducing the risk of fuel poverty,
as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said. One estimate I have seen is that a zero-carbon three-bedroom semi would have an annual energy bill of £1,220 less than the equivalent Victorian house. So it would be a very short time indeed until the extra costs of purchase had been paid back through energy savings. Thirdly and finally, if we do not adopt the highest standards now, we will inevitably have to retrofit the houses in coming decades, which will be both costly and inconvenient.
If we do not adopt this amendment, I predict that home owners and policymakers alike will look back in 20 years’ time and say, “Why didn’t they just do it? What were they thinking of?”.