My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of Peers for the Planet and the fact that I have a family member currently working in the energy efficiency space. I added my name to Amendment 484, which was so comprehensively explained by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Best. It concerns an important and underrecognised area in terms of climate change and the reduction of emissions. I hope that the Minister will take it very seriously.
I have tabled Amendment 504GF in this group, which deals with the urgent need to make progress in energy efficiency through a warmer homes and businesses action plan. The contributions already made today show clearly the synergy between the amendments on healthy homes and my amendment on energy efficiency. The health of those who live in the UK’s housing stock which is damp, cold or leaky, and worse than the housing stock in most of Europe, is impacted day in and day out by the conditions in which they live. We should all be concerned about this, but it is not only the health of those of our fellow citizens that would be addressed by taking action on energy efficiency, such as insulation or new forms of heating.
Investing in insulation and decarbonisation has many other benefits for individuals and society. It reduces costs not only for bill payers but for the taxpayer, who is currently spending vast sums subsidising energy bills through the energy price guarantee. It helps to reduce greenhouse gases and improve our air quality. It contributes to our net-zero target and, in an increasingly unstable world, electrifying the heat in our homes and making them energy efficient has
become an issue of national security as well. Yet we appear as a nation to be in a position of stasis on energy efficiency.
Short-term scheme after short-term scheme underdelivers, damaging confidence that the wider task can be achieved. Scandalously, hundreds of thousands of homes are being built every year which will require future retrofitting because we did not implement the standards early enough. We have our most vulnerable citizens living in fuel poverty in cold and leaky homes. We have an industry largely waiting for confirmation from the Government before they get on with what will be a huge job of scaling up the market and developing the skills we need. Insulating, retrofitting and installing low-carbon technology all play a significant role, but so too do the planning system, funding and government leadership. We need to make the progress that will bring with it good jobs, economic security and benefits in reducing our carbon emissions.
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I fear that the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, will think that she is experiencing Groundhog Day because many of these points were made in relation to the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill. She knows my concerns in this area: that we need a consistent long-term approach and to follow the advice of many committees, not least the Economic Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House. There is never much dissent from the proposition that this needs to be done; rather, there is the idea that we do not need another strategy as we have lots of those. I cannot deny that: there has been strategy after strategy and consultation after consultation. There have not been so many responses to consultation, but we have had many of those things.
My amendment is phrased in terms of an action plan, setting out what we actually need to see the Government do and achieve in the short term. Rather than repeating what I have said in the past, and boring the Minister stupid, I will only quote from a report published today. It is the National Infrastructure Commission’s Infrastructure Progress Review, published in relation to energy efficiency, and it makes a compelling case. It criticises the
“negligible advances in improving the energy efficiency of UK homes, the installation of low carbon heating solutions or securing a sustainable balance of water supply and demand”.
The report points out:
“The government has set an ambition for at least 600,000 heat pumps to be installed each year by 2028, but only around 55,000 were installed in 2021”.
Meanwhile, 1.5 million gas boilers were fitted.
The report also proposes
“Fewer, but bigger and better interventions from central government”.
with tighter strategic focus on the areas where they can make the most difference. Rather than expending
“too much effort on many small scale funding interventions and repeated consultations, trying to maintain optionality in all areas”.
The conclusion I take from it, and the quote that I am trying to implement in my amendment is that
“A concrete plan for delivering energy efficiency improvements is required, with a particular focus on driving action in homes and facilitating the investment needed”.
I believe that this amendment fits absolutely with the amendments that we have been debating on healthy homes and the health of individuals. I hope the Minister will be able to support it.