I am delighted to take that point on district heating back to the department. It will become an increasingly interesting area as we move to nuclear power and other ways of producing energy for district heating networks. I know that my noble friend has already made a note of that.
I shall speak first to Amendment 121 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster. I thank him for raising this important matter, but I am afraid that the Government will not be able to accept the amendment. That is not because we disagree with its aims, but because we are already doing an awful lot of work in this area, and it pre-empts a number of workstreams already under way across government.
On the assistance that we are giving those who face the tragic choice between heating and eating, I remind noble Lords that we have already introduced winter fuel payments and the warm home discount. The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, introduced a £9.1 billion package of support in the spending review, encompassing a number of initiatives. A £3 billion package of energy efficiency measures will be introduced over this Parliament. All are targeted at low-income households. There is also the ECO scheme, funded from bills, which will rise from £750 million to £1 billion over this Parliament. There are also boiler upgrades. We are doing a huge amount in this space. We are not unsympathetic to the reasons for the noble Lord’s amendment, but I defend our record.
In 2017, the Government committed in the clean growth strategy to upgrade as many homes as possible to EPC band C by 2035 and as many private rental homes as possible to EPC band C by 2030 where practical, affordable and cost effective. The Government have now consulted on raising the energy performance standard in the domestic private rented sector to EPC band C and will publish a response to that consultation in due course.
We further committed in the Energy White Paper to seek primary powers to create a long-term regulatory framework to improve the energy performance of homes, alongside a package of incentives. We have consulted a wide range of stakeholders and will undertake further consultation on specific policy design before making secondary legislation. In the Social Housing White Paper, we committed to reviewing the statutory decent homes standard by 2024 to consider how it can better support decarbonisation and improve the energy efficiency of social homes. In the Net Zero Strategy, we reiterated our commitment to consulting on phasing in higher minimum performance standards to ensure that all homes meet EPC band C by 2035 where practical, cost effective and affordable. In light of these comments, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
I turn to Amendment 128 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. Her proposed new clause would set a requirement for the Secretary of State to consider the energy efficiency impact when making changes to the building regulations for the purpose of building safety. It is a fundamental principle of the building regulations that, when building work is carried out, all applicable technical requirements must be met. In many cases, this will include energy efficiency, referred to in the regulations as the
“conservation of fuel and power”.
If a particular technical requirement is not applicable to a specific building project, the building regulations none the less require that the building is not made less compliant with that requirement than it was before the building project. This means, for example, that where work is undertaken to improve a building’s fire safety performance, the building’s energy efficiency must not be worsened as a consequence. The opposite case is also true, in that energy efficiency improvements must not worsen the fire safety performance of a building.
As this principle is laid out in the existing regulations, energy efficiency is already a consideration in carrying out building work. We do not believe that it is necessary to introduce a specific duty for the Secretary of State to consider energy efficiency matters when making building regulations for the purpose of safety. I assure the noble Baroness therefore that her intention to ensure that energy efficiency is considered in relation to building safety has already been met under existing legislation.
I wish to reassure the Committee that the Government take the matter of energy efficiency seriously and are taking action in this space. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
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