Warm Homes Plan

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

First, that sounds like negative propaganda against Kirklees council, which I am sceptical about. Secondly, on the wider issue, the whole point of the plan is that we are doing it through public investment. That is the decision the Chancellor took and I think it is the right decision.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I really welcome today’s announcement. Stoke-on-Trent is routinely ranked at No. 1 in the country for fuel poverty. We have old, terraced housing, often with single glazing and small yards, so space for heat pumps and so on is a concern, but I am sure we will work that out. We are very fortunate that Fiona Miller and the Beat the Cold team, who recently met the Minister for energy consumers, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey), do a lot of work on the ground. The Secretary of State says that the plan will be run through local authorities. How can good partnerships in localities already doing the work be involved in the programme?

My right hon. Friend also says that he is aware of the challenges that suppliers of the ECO scheme face, having lost contracts. In my constituency, that is lots of jobs that have now been lost. How soon will the information be available to them, so they can start workforce planning for the delivery of the programme and get people back into work delivering the upgrades we need?

[Ed Miliband]

On my hon. Friend’s first point, we want to use local partnerships that are already in place. On ECO installers, that is the work that the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West will be cracking on with. We did not want just to say that we will allocate the money and that it needs to go through the ECO installers. We want to make sure that happens and we will work urgently on that.