(1 day, 11 hours ago)
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Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this crucial issue tonight. I hope to bring to the House the voices of people in my constituency, of campaigners across the country, and of the many families who wake up each morning wondering, “How will we keep our children warm this winter? How will we keep our grandparents warm?” Those are questions that nobody should have to ask.
The Government have committed £13.2 billion to the warm homes plan, which is welcome. It was very strongly implied that this would be £13.2 billion of additional funding, but there are rumours that the Chancellor is considering scaling back the energy company obligation and paying for it with the warm homes plan funding. That would mean that the Government were, in reality, reducing the amount of money spent on retrofit. If that is the case, it is extremely disappointing—and that is the understatement of the year.
I am really disappointed that the warm homes plan, which was due to have come forward quite some time ago, has been delayed and delayed. We now find that there is perhaps a Government plan to reassign some of the funding in a way that would fly entirely in the face of the intended purposes of the warm homes plan, and in the face of what we need to do: upgrade our homes so that everybody can live in a warm home that is affordable to heat. Fuel poverty is an absolute scandal in our country, and we simply cannot let a long-term programme be cannibalised to produce a short-term headline. The rescue mission that our housing stock needs will not survive being hollowed out further by short-term tinkering in the Treasury.
We already know the shocking scale of fuel poverty in this country. The Government’s own figures show that nearly 3 million households in England were fuel-poor in 2024.
Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)
The hon. Member is making a powerful case about fuel poverty. In my constituency, around 5,000 households are experiencing fuel poverty—about one in 10 homes. We know that three factors affect this issue: the energy efficiency of a property, the household’s income, and the cost of keeping warm. Given that last year alone, energy companies made a profit of £61 billion, does she agree that it is time we revisited the idea of a nationwide social tariff, which would bring down bills for all low-income households and those living in fuel poverty?
Dr Chowns
The hon. Member is right to draw attention to the eye-watering profits made by energy companies—a subject raised during exchanges on the statement made just before this debate—and the irresponsibility of many of those companies’ actions. It is essential to ensure that when people pay their bills, the money goes towards keeping them warm, not filling the coffers of shareholders. Given those eye-watering profits, it is clear that there is capacity in the energy market, not least because of the hike in energy prices that has resulted from Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. That is what has driven them through the roof; it has nothing whatever to do with levies and policy costs. We should be ensuring that those eye-watering sums are reinvested in supporting those who are most vulnerable to fuel poverty, and enabling them to live in warm homes.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady for raising this issue. In Northern Ireland we have a slightly different scheme called the affordable warmth scheme, run by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. The problem we have is that only a certain amount of money is set aside, and it is first come, first served, so some people in poverty do not receive the benefit, whereas others do. Does the hon. Lady agree that such schemes, whether here in England or in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales, must always make funding available to those who meet the criteria?
Dr Chowns
The hon. Gentleman may have been reading my notes over my shoulder, because I was about to make exactly that point. We must keep the needs of the most vulnerable households front and centre.
I was talking about the fuel poverty statistics. According to the Government’s own figures, 3 million households were fuel-poor in 2024, but using the definition that is still used in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, campaigners estimate that the number of UK households facing fuel poverty is nearly double that number—about 6 million households. We live in one of the world’s wealthiest countries, and no one, but no one, should be struggling to keep their home warm.
In the west midlands, where my lovely constituency is, we face the highest regional rate of fuel poverty in England. North Herefordshire far more badly affected than the national average. Adding to the strain in my constituency is the fact that rural homes are disproportionately affected by fuel poverty. They are more likely to be detached or built before 1919—that is certainly the case in North Herefordshire—and therefore harder to heat efficiently, and rural households face deep fuel poverty and high energy costs. Moreover, installers are known to avoid complicated homes, such as those in my constituency, because they are less profitable, which means that schemes such as the ECO often fail to reach rural locations.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
In my constituency, the charity Act On Energy gives advice and support on energy efficiency to residents, many of whom are in fuel poverty. Its work is particularly relevant in rural communities where properties are older and harder to insulate and, in many instances, rely on oil and liquefied petroleum gas. Does my hon. Friend agree that more must be done to help off-grid households to insulate their homes properly?
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
I agree that rural households such as those in my part of Cornwall desperately need the warm homes plan. Does the hon. Member agree that other sources of energy provision—for instance, ground source heat pumps and liquid fuels such as hydrotreated vegetable oil—could also be included, and would be a good addition to the plan when it arrives, which we hope will be soon?
Dr Chowns
I am not an engineer, and I must confess to having some doubts, certainly about HVO, so I would need to engage in a bit more conversation on that subject. As for ground source heat pumps—yes, absolutely, although I understand that air source is normally more efficient. In my constituency we have some water source heat pumps as well, so all sorts of wonderful technologies are possible.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella) drew attention to the excellent work done by charitable organisations in this sector, but fundamentally none of it is a substitute for a decent, proper, national, strategic, well-funded and long-term programme of home insulation to tackle the problem at its root. If we have delivery routes based only on profitability for private contractors, whole swathes of the country will be left behind. We have had problems, such as those highlighted by the National Audit Office recently, that are related to short-termism and profiteering by some rogue contractors.
Retrofitting homes is central to solving fuel poverty. Insulation and proper energy efficiency measures reduce bills and cut emissions. Upgrading a typical home from an energy performance certificate rating of D to EPC C— I recognise that EPCs are not perfect, but I will leave that aside for the moment—would save households around £210 a year. That is a significant amount of real money for families who need it, and it is also good economics for the country. Investments in innovation and home energy efficiency pay back in lower bills, reduced pressure on the NHS, health savings, which are related to better health outcomes, and, of course, jobs created up and down the supply chain. We want to be investing in these new green industries.
It is important to acknowledge that there is a history in this sector; we have been here before. Past retrofit schemes have been structured in ways that prioritised speed and profit over quality and need, allowing cowboy contractors to exploit the system. That was in significant part due to the short-termism of those programmes, which limped from year to year with single-year funding allocations. It was utterly counterproductive, and I saw that myself as I wrestled with such programmes when I was working as a councillor and as a cabinet member with responsibility for energy and environment. We need long-term policy certainty. The colleges providing the skills training, the businesses wanting to support apprentices and take them on, and the companies wanting to join the supply chain need that long-term policy certainty, which is in the gift of the Government.
The National Audit Office recently reported very serious quality failures in recent ECO4 retrofit installations, leading to significant health risks for thousands of households. The Government absolutely must not allow the same mistakes to be repeated in the warm homes plan. The plan must commit not only to making homes warmer and bringing down bills for the millions struggling across the country, but to ensuring that no one ends up in a worse financial situation through having used a Government retrofit scheme. That is why the warm homes plan must promise homes that are not only warmer, but retrofitted properly by those with appropriate certification, and must be subject to independent checks.
The Treasury is tempted by immediate headline reductions in bills, but if the Government reduce or eliminate the ECO scheme and use the warm homes plan money to backfill those losses, the result will be fewer homes upgraded, fewer people protected from fuel poverty, and a greater long-term cost to the public purse and to our national health.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I am really grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue, because the two things are intrinsically linked. It is absolutely vital that we have a strategic plan that brings together the issues that cause fuel poverty, including poorly insulated homes. Does she agree that the Government need to have a strategic plan that looks at geography as well as degree of poverty, in order to ensure that people’s homes and their finances are insulated?
Dr Chowns
I absolutely agree with the hon. Member, who is a fantastic champion for health. She pays attention to the needs of the most vulnerable in our society, and ensures that policy really addresses the root issues that people face. I agree, and that is why I am so deeply concerned that the Government are flying this kite, and suggesting that they will start plugging gaps in the cost of their energy bills policy by using the warm homes plan money. Instead, they should introduce a wealth tax; that could be another source of funding for this endeavour.
In plain language, taking money out of the warm homes plan to fill a gap that would be created by abolishing ECO is robbing Peter to pay Paul. It is completely short-sighted. We absolutely need to cut energy bills, and we need as much investment as possible—as much as is needed—in the home insulation programmes that will provide the long-term solution to the problem of fuel poverty. This is not an either/or choice. We can and must make bills more affordable, and must at the same time invest in home upgrades to create future savings. We do not need to choose between warmth today and efficiency tomorrow. I mentioned a wealth tax; a 1% tax on wealth above £10 million, and a 2% tax on wealth above £1 billion, would raise at least £14.8 billion. That is way more than enough to pay for the cost of electricity bills policy, and to scale up, not down, the warm homes plan.
I want to set out briefly what a responsible warm homes plan must contain. First, it must treat the worst affected first, as hon. Members from across the House have said. It must prioritise low-income and vulnerable households and the coldest and least energy efficient homes, and treat warmth as a basic human right.
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)
I absolutely agree with the hon. Member that a well-funded warm homes plan is essential to insulating draughty homes and cutting bills. I wonder if she aware of the situation faced by my constituents in Letchworth Garden City. They have a separate scheme of management, so people applying for insulation have to go through two layers of regulation. That creates a real block to getting insulation for people who desperately need it. Would she join me in urging the Minister to bring together MPs who represent areas with such schemes of management, so that we can address that hurdle and ensure that those most in need, in all parts of the country, get the support that they need from the warm homes plan?
Dr Chowns
The hon. Member is a fantastic champion for policies that address social and environmental justice. He raises the important point that in these schemes, far too often, people have to jump through umpteen hoops. We are talking about supporting the most vulnerable households; the last thing they need to do is jump through multiple administrative hoops, go through all the levels of a scheme, and then find that the deadline for the programme has been reached. We need to simplify and clarify, to provide long-term certainty to everybody working in the sector, and ensure that all households that need to access the warm homes plan can do so as easily and simply as possible.
I was talking about treating the worst-affected homes first; that was my first point. Secondly, a good warm homes plan must guarantee independent retrofit assessment and performance monitoring. We must not repeat the problems we had with ECO4. When public money pays for home improvements, the public must demand high standards. That means an independent public body with statutory powers to co-ordinate, monitor, evaluate and enforce, and to make sure that this stuff is done to the correct standard. It must be able to withhold payment until independent sign-off is achieved, and have a compulsory remedial fund that fixes, at no cost to households, any poor workmanship that somehow gets through. If we are to prevent a repetition of past problems, this body must create a publicly accessible register of any firms that fail to meet high standards.
Thirdly, a decent warm homes plan must include proper support and tailored delivery, especially for rural homes. North Herefordshire and many constituencies like it cannot be dismissed or overlooked because our properties are older and more challenging. We need specialist assessment teams, rural tailored procurement, and grant funding that recognises the additional cost of retrofitting hard-to-treat homes.
Fourthly, the plan must protect tenants. Retrofitting must not become an excuse for “retroviction”, in which landlords evict tenants to carry out improvements or unduly raise rents as a result. The warm homes plan must include a freeze on evictions and rent rises during any improvement works, and for a certain period after they have been completed. That would ensure that tenants felt the benefits of these improvements, and that costs were not passed on to them.
Fifthly, the plan must include an urgent programme to inspect and fix the homes affected by poor ECO4 installations. The victims of past Governments’ poor-quality schemes deserve an apology, compensation and a guarantee that this will never be repeated. The Government have to replace broken accreditation schemes and reform regulatory responsibilities, so that the system provides real accountability, not a paper trail of excuses.
Sixthly, the plan must be aligned with a clear energy affordability strategy. Real reductions in household energy bills mean reducing our dependence on volatile global gas markets, decoupling the price of gas from the price of electricity, expanding clean power capacity and tackling excessive corporate profits.
It is unconscionable that while millions struggle in cold homes, nearly a quarter of the annual average energy bill went to the pre-tax profits of major electricity generators, networks and household suppliers last year in the UK. That scale of profit demands scrutiny and a reconsideration of who bears the cost of our energy transition. Do we accept a system where families are priced out of warmth, while companies report massive profits, or do we invest in public goods that protect the vulnerable and create sustainable jobs?
The warm homes plan is a chance to change lives, lower bills, create good, skilled jobs and cut emissions. It is also, frankly, a test of this Government’s political will and our moral compass.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this really important subject to the House. Does she acknowledge that the Government have invested £13.2 billion, which is a long-term investment? Further, does she acknowledge that in my constituency, that has meant £11 million for the warm homes plan, which was match-funded by the council? The council tells me that this enables it to get on with delivering efficiency improvements to about 1,000 council homes over the next three years. That sounds pretty long-term and substantial to me.
Dr Chowns
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the earlier part of my speech, in which I explained that I absolutely do welcome the commitment to £13.2 billion, but I am deeply worried that the Government appear to be backsliding from that commitment; they are promising to use part of that in other policy areas, as a sticking plaster. That could significantly reduce the overall package of funding available for this vital work, when the Government should be increasing it. If the Government do good things, I will say, “Well done.” If they threaten to do bad things, I will be really rather cross, and will try to put as much pressure as possible on the Minister.
This House, the Minister and the Government can choose to protect that full £13.2 billion, make it additional to the other schemes to tackle fuel poverty, and make this work for the poorest and most vulnerable, or we can stand by and watch the plan be hollowed out for short-term convenience. We can measure the cost of inaction in ill health, avoidable deaths, poorer education outcomes, and long-term added pressure on our NHS and social services. The choice is clear: the Government must not let short termism steal warmth and energy bill savings from millions. Please, do not let the lessons of the past be the mistakes of our future.
Tom Collins (Worcester) (Lab)
The hon. Lady rightly points out the importance of health in this debate. We face a crisis of warmth, but also a crisis of damp in our housing stock. In a building, ventilation and heating can often sit in tension with one another, yet it is vital that we think about the two together, and about how people dry in their homes, for example. Does she agree that we should look at fabrics, which I am very pleased she mentioned, as well as technology for heating, and should look to address in a conscious and positive way the ventilation of homes?
Dr Chowns
Absolutely, I completely agree. We need a long-term strategic approach that takes into account all the issues in houses, so that we do not repeat the problems of ECO4. That is part of the issue that the hon. Gentleman is talking about.
I am literally on my final sentence. Let us make the warm homes plan the bold, high-quality, fair, accessible and accountable programme that the people of Britain deserve. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Martin McCluskey)
I thank the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns) for securing this debate, and for the constructive way in which she has engaged with everything that the Department has been doing since the election last year. In the seven minutes available to me, I will try to address the points she has raised, but I am more than happy to discuss them with her further afterwards.
Everything we do in life starts at home, and the state of our housing stock, as has been mentioned by many hon. Members, is a national issue. It is therefore only right that the warm homes plan should receive proper scrutiny. We invite that scrutiny. We encourage people with a range of views to make their voices heard. Today, I reaffirm our commitment to the warm homes plan, restate our ambition, and remind hon. Members of what we will deliver in the years ahead, because this is one of the most urgent challenges the Government face in our mission to improve the lives of working people.
When I was given this role 10 weeks ago, the clearest of the instructions I was given was to reduce energy bills by making millions more homes warm, safe and fit for the 21st century. That is the challenge. Our housing stock is among the oldest in Europe. Over a third of it was built before the second world war, and that has a cost: high bills, damp and mould, miserable winters, risks to health, families wasting their hard-earned money on heating leaky, poorly insulated homes, and persistent, debilitating fuel poverty. This is an obstacle that we must overcome in our mission for national renewal. It is not just an economic imperative, but a moral and social one. This is how we rebuild people’s trust that the Government still have the power to intervene and improve their lives. It is why upgrading our homes is at the heart of our clean energy mission and our national mission.
We have been working hard to get our warm homes plan right and will publish our full plan soon. It has been a priority for me since I took on this brief two months ago, and it will be published soon. We have been clear from the moment we came into government about the scale of our ambition, and we are planning to upgrade up to 5 million homes by the end of this Parliament; that is entire streets and whole neighbourhoods benefiting from solar panels, heat pumps, home batteries and better insulation. To ensure that we deliver on that, we have matched every penny that we promised for this in opposition, investing £13.2 billion to improve homes up and down the country, slashing both bills and emissions—and, importantly, reducing fuel poverty.
To achieve our goals, people need to have full confidence in the system. We are aware of the recent National Audit Office report into non-compliance in two Government schemes delivering solid wall insulation, as many hon. Members have mentioned. Let me be clear: we will never let that happen again. More than that, we are taking this chance to completely overhaul the consumer protection landscape for retrofit measures so that work is done right the first time, guaranteeing customers the level of service that they deserve and swift redress on the occasions when those levels are not met. The warm homes plan will work only if we take people with us and deliver change at pace and at scale to the highest standards.
We are not waiting for the warm homes plan to start this work. We have already kick-started delivery, making it cheaper and easier for families to get heat pumps installed, almost doubling the funding for the boiler upgrade scheme to £295 million for this financial year, with a commitment to increase that funding year on year up to 2030, and removing the 1-metre rule for air source heat pumps in England, giving people more flexibility to install them without applying for planning permission. Today I was pleased to say that we have published our response to the boiler upgrade scheme consultation, extending the eligibility for that scheme. We have also published a consultation on alternative heating solutions today, including—my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) will be interested in this—on renewable liquid heating fuels, which I know is of interest to many Members in rural constituencies.
Martin McCluskey
I am going to make progress because we are so tight on time.
Crucially, it is not just homeowners who will benefit from our plan. Back in March, we allocated around £1.8 billion to local authorities and social housing providers to deliver home upgrades through the warm homes local grant and warm homes social housing fund, which will support around 200 projects over the next three years, with work already under way. To achieve our goals, we are also backing improved standards in the private and social rented sector, as the hon. Member for North Herefordshire mentioned. We know that far too many tenants are faced with the daily reality of living in damp, draughty homes that they cannot afford to heat, which is why we have set out proposals to increase minimum energy efficiency standards in the private rented sector in England and Wales to an EPC rating of C or equivalent by 2030 and to introduce a minimum energy efficiency standard in the social rented sector. Combined, these measures will lift hundreds of thousands of households out of fuel poverty, giving renters the warmer homes and cheaper bills that they deserve.
Our plan is not just about retrofitting the older homes, but building the homes of the future. We have also set the target of building 1.5 million new future-proofed homes by the end of the decade, and our future homes standard will ensure that for the residents of those new homes, heat pumps, heat networks and solar panels on rooftops will become the norm, saving the typical household £500 on their bills each year.
While we deliver our plan, we are giving families the short-term support they need this winter. Earlier this year, we expanded the £150 warm home discount to every household where the bill payer is on means-tested benefits, meaning that this winter around 6 million families —one in five across Britain—will get this crucial benefit.
As for the long term, it is really very simple: home-grown clean power is the way through. It means that we can control our energy prices—the end of rollercoaster energy bills, price spikes, and an uncertain future decided by dictators and upheavals beyond our borders. By upgrading homes with energy efficient technologies, we can ensure that people feel the direct benefits of that clean, secure and affordable energy. That is how we will bring clean power home.
The Labour Government have a plan: to make millions more homes fit for the 21st century, to finally and properly tackle fuel poverty, and to protect working people and ensure that they will not have to worry about every degree turned up on the thermostat, every light switched on and every penny spent. We welcome constructive views on our approach, but we will not entertain those who would abandon our mission to decarbonise our homes and buildings or the wider transformative architecture of clean power and, with that, abandon a hopeful, forward-thinking vision for this country. The British people want change and that is what we have set out to deliver with the warm homes plan.
Question put and agreed to.