Asked by: Lord Whitehead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, on how many occasions in the last 10 years his Department has requested analysis from accreditation schemes for energy assessors on complaints they have recorded under the Scheme Operating Requirements.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Energy Assessor Accreditation Schemes are required to have complaints systems in place to deal with complaints about individual energy assessments. The Department has no plans to require Accreditation Schemes to submit data to the department relating to complaints about their members and has not requested this data in the past.
Asked by: Lord Whitehead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how his Department decides when to undertake audit surveillance on Energy Assessor Accreditation schemes; how much audit surveillance of those schemes his Department has undertaken in each of the last 12 months; and whether his Department plans to publish the results of that surveillance.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
Energy Assessor Accreditation Schemes are audited by the Department four times per year to ensure that Schemes continue to meet the minimum standards required under the Scheme Operating Requirements. The Department has no plans to publish the results of these audits.
Asked by: Lord Whitehead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if his Department will publish the collated data for each Energy Assessor and Accreditation Scheme in each of the last 12 months, including on domestic energy assessor complaints and reporting.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Department has no plans to publish reporting data provided by Energy Assessor Accreditation Schemes.
The Energy Assessor Accreditation Schemes are required to have complaints systems in place to deal with complaints about individual energy assessments. The department occasionally receives complaints about how Accreditation Schemes have handled complaints made to them but does not hold a record of the numbers of these.
Asked by: Lord Whitehead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if his Department will publish monthly reports from Accreditation Schemes for the production of energy certificates detailing EPC activity.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The department publishes weekly and monthly statistics on the number of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) lodged to the EPC Register. This information is available on Gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-energy-performance-of-buildings-certificates
EPC data is also regularly published on Open Data Communities, with between two and four updates per year: https://epc.opendatacommunities.org/
Asked by: Lord Whitehead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what discussions his Department has had with stakeholders on requiring domestic energy assessor accreditation schemes to submit data regarding complaints they receive relating to their accredited assessors to his Department.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The domestic energy assessor accreditation schemes are required to have complaints systems in place to deal with complaints about individual energy assessments. The Department has no plans to require schemes to submit data to the Department relating to complaints about their members.
Asked by: Lord Whitehead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many complaints his Department has received relating to each of the five domestic energy assessor accreditation schemes in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The energy assessor accreditation schemes are required to have complaints systems in place to deal with complaints about individual energy assessments. The Department occasionally receives complaints about how schemes have handled complaints made to them but does not hold a record of the numbers of these.
Asked by: Lord Whitehead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the risks of energy assessors carrying out fraudulent assessments of domestic properties in order for those properties to comply with Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Department recognises that there is a risk of fraudulent assessments for energy performance certificates. Accreditation Schemes are required to have Fraud Identification Plans that include informing the appropriate authorities if fraud is suspected. The EPC Action Plan sets out the Government’s intention to consider wider issues about the oversight and accountability of the EPC system including to deal with fraud issues in a more comprehensive way.
Asked by: Lord Whitehead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the Government's response to the Future Homes Standard consultation, published in January 2021, whether his Department plans to fully implement the Future Homes Standard in 2025 as set out in that response.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
From 2025, the Future Homes Standard will ensure that new homes are future-proofed with low carbon heating and high levels of energy efficiency to produce at least 75 per cent lower CO2 emissions compared to those built to current standards, which represents a considerable improvement in energy efficiency standards of new homes.
As set out in the Government response to the Future Homes Standard consultation, our work on a full technical specification for the Future Homes Standard has been accelerated and we will consult on this in 2023. We also intend to introduce the necessary legislation in 2024, ahead of implementation in 2025.
It is also worthy of note that later this year we will introduce an interim uplift in Part L standards that provides a stepping stone to the Future Homes Standard and will require new homes to produce 31% less CO2 emissions compared to current standards.
This timeline delivers on our net zero commitments, while ensuring that new homes are delivered in sufficient numbers in the places that we need them; providing the good quality, warm homes that consumers expect; and continuing to keep energy bills low.
Asked by: Lord Whitehead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the Government's response to the Future Homes Standard consultation, published in January 2021, whether he plans to bring forward the legislative proposals necessary for the Future Homes Standard in 2024 as set out in that response.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
From 2025, the Future Homes Standard will ensure that new homes are future-proofed with low carbon heating and high levels of energy efficiency to produce at least 75 per cent lower CO2 emissions compared to those built to current standards, which represents a considerable improvement in energy efficiency standards of new homes.
As set out in the Government response to the Future Homes Standard consultation, our work on a full technical specification for the Future Homes Standard has been accelerated and we will consult on this in 2023. We also intend to introduce the necessary legislation in 2024, ahead of implementation in 2025.
It is also worthy of note that later this year we will introduce an interim uplift in Part L standards that provides a stepping stone to the Future Homes Standard and will require new homes to produce 31% less CO2 emissions compared to current standards.
This timeline delivers on our net zero commitments, while ensuring that new homes are delivered in sufficient numbers in the places that we need them; providing the good quality, warm homes that consumers expect; and continuing to keep energy bills low.