Winter Heating Initiatives

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am sorry that the noble Lord is so down on the ECO scheme. It is a good programme and, as he is probably aware, we are expanding it to £1 billion a year. It is not the only energy-efficiency scheme we have: there is the home upgrade grant, the local authority delivery scheme and the social housing decarbonisation fund, which is about to launch bids for another £800 million of grants to local authorities and housing associations.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

The Minister has said the House needs no persuasion of the importance of energy efficiency, yet the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill currently in front of the House contains no mention of energy efficiency and makes no requirement to take it into account for social housing landlords. Will he have a word with his noble friend Lord Greenhalgh, who is in charge of that Bill, to see whether that can be remedied in Committee? The Energy Bill has 370 pages, and 10 lines alone for the Long Title, so, given that we are dealing with it in very short order, I wonder whether he can assure me that that Bill is fitter for purpose than the Schools Bill and the Procurement Bill have been?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

There were a number of questions there. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, mentioned the considerable sums that we will expend on the social housing decarbonisation fund; that funding will be matched by local authorities and housing associations, so we will get more bang for our buck. I am sure that we will have many debates on the Energy Bill. A considerable amount of work has gone into it. There will be some additions to the Bill to cover late policy changes, but I will outline those to the House at Second Reading.