Warm Homes Plan

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for the advance copy of his statement.

Today’s announcement is long overdue—overdue by an entire year, to be exact. During the general election, the Labour party claimed that it would cut household bills. This announcement should be part of that, but in that time, since the general election and on this Secretary of State’s watch, energy bills have not fallen; they have gone in the opposite direction. Energy bills are up by £200 since the election, partly as a result of the Secretary of State’s own political choices.

We believe that there is a greater role in our energy system for home batteries, we support a more technology-agnostic approach to air-to-air heat pumps, and, of course, we believe that rooftop solar is much better than carpeting the countryside in huge solar farms, but the Secretary of State is ignoring the core problem. We are in an electricity price crisis of his own making. Even if we are as charitable as possible and accept that the Government will reach the 5 million households who they say will benefit from this plan, it will do nothing to cut bills for 83% of the country. However, all those households will pay much higher taxes because of Labour’s Budget, including taxes to fund the Secretary of State’s £15 billion plan, and they are struggling with their energy bills now because of the choices of the Secretary of State.

Let me now turn to the specific measures in the plan. The Department’s own figures show that the public are becoming more sceptical about heat pumps. Between winter 2024 and spring 2025, the proportion of people saying that they were unlikely to install an air source heat pump increased from 38% to 45%, and if you ask anyone why they do not want a heat pump, they will say it is because of the high up-front costs. [Interruption.] Yes, they will—but it is also because of the high ongoing running costs, which often make heat pumps more expensive to run than gas boilers.

There is a serious risk that the Government’s legally binding targets are forcing them to push people into buying heat pumps, but all those families will be locked into sky-high running costs, because the Government have a political target that is pushing up electricity bills at the same time. This plan does nothing to address those high ongoing running costs. Indeed, last week the Government announced that they were locking the country into higher energy prices for decades through their botched wind auction. Just imagine that there was a plan on the table to cut the cost of running a heat pump by 20% instantly: a cheap power plan that would not involve raising taxes on working people to fund handouts; a plan that would axe the carbon tax, and scrap the Secretary of State’s rip-off wind subsidies to cut bills for every family in the country. Would that not be a far better approach to making make heat pumps much more attractive?

What steps will the Department take to ensure that low-interest loans will provide good value for money? How many homes will benefit from the low-interest and zero-interest loans scheme, and how will it be determined who gets a low-interest loan or a zero-interest loan?

As for the changes to the minimum energy efficiency standards for rented homes, the Secretary of State will know that the previous Government did more than any other to improve energy efficiency standards, with half of all homes having an energy performance certificate rating of C or above when we left office, compared to 14% when the Secretary of State left office in 2010. Has his Department carried out any impact assessment of what the 2030 deadline will cost landlords, and how much of the cost will be passed on to renters? His own Government’s data shows that it will cost more than £12,000 to upgrade a home from EPC E to C—£12,000 that will then be passed on to families in increased rents. We cannot ignore all the costs that this Government are imposing on the housing sector, and the impact that they will have on the cost of living for families.

The Government are going to set up a new quango, the warm homes agency, to administer these schemes. Can the Secretary of State tell us how much this quango will cost the taxpayer, how it will be held accountable, and why he decided to spend money on setting up a new quango rather than those functions being delivered by his own Department, which he controls?

The Secretary of State has already been forced, by this House, to ban Great British Energy from spending taxpayers’ money on solar panels when there is evidence of forced labour in the supply chain, and of course we welcome that, but can he assure the House that he will apply that same ban on slave labour to solar panel installations funded by the warm homes plan? When will he publish details of how that mechanism will work, so that it can be scrutinised by the House?

The Government are ignoring the fact that the affordability crisis that the Secretary State talks about is a crisis of his own making. They are ignoring the fact that they are locking the country into paying higher bills for far longer. If they truly want to encourage people to adopt green technology, like heat pumps or electric vehicles, they need to make electricity cheap. They could adopt the Conservatives’ cheap power plan to cut everyone’s electricity bills by 20% and scrap the reckless clean power 2030 target, which is locking everyone into paying higher bills for far longer.

[Ed Miliband]

It is always a pleasure to be opposite the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). Let me make a few points to him, in the gentlest way I can. Let me deal first with his point about the cost of electricity. In her Budget, the Chancellor did more in one decision—namely, to transfer 75% of the renewables obligation to public spending to cut electricity costs—than the last Government did in 14 years in power.

[Andrew Bowie]

The bills have gone up!

[Ed Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman is shouting about bills. Let me tell him that the average bill in 2025 was lower in real terms than in 2024, and so was the price cap, as he will know from the figures. I am incredibly proud that this Government, unlike the last Government, are taking £150 of costs off bills thanks to the Chancellor’s decision, funded by taxes on the wealthy—and the Conservatives oppose all those tax measures.

The hon. Gentleman talked about renters. I think that, basically, what I heard—and perhaps it should not surprise me—was that he is actually against the higher standards for renters. He would leave private renters languishing in cold, damp homes, which is what the Conservatives did during their 14 years in power. We are proud of the decision that we are making. Thanks to the brilliant work of the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey), we actually have a supportive quote from the landlords. Even the landlords want more action than the Conservative party when it comes to the renters! To amuse the House briefly, I will read out that quote. Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, said:

“a clear roadmap for the reform of PRS MEES is welcome.”

Even the landlords are more on the side of renters than the Conservative party.

The hon. Gentleman asked why we were setting up the warm homes agency. I will tell him why. He said, “Wouldn’t it be better to do this within Government?” The Conservatives presided over a scandalous and shocking disaster in the ECO scheme, a mess that we are having to clear up. We are going to reform the system so that we have a proper agency with proper technical expertise to ensure that nothing like what they visited on thousands of families across the country ever happens again.

I like the hon. Gentleman, and I feel a bit of sympathy for him because he has nothing to say about this issue. Let us just be honest about this: the Conservatives failed over 14 years, and we are delivering.