Home Insulation

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Anna Dixon]

My hon. Friend makes the point very well, and I absolutely agree that poor housing is part of a public health emergency. Young and old alike suffer from cold and damp homes. At the extreme, cold homes kill. It has been estimated that they contributed to 5,000 excess winter deaths among older people in 2022-23. For me, that figure is shocking and unacceptable.

Poor-quality housing affects people differently. The Centre for Ageing Better and the Fabian Society recently published research showing that as many as 80% of owner-occupiers aged over 55 live in poor-quality homes.

I probably should have drawn attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests in that I am co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on housing and care for older people. I support the proposals put forward in the “Forward Planning” report. One that is relevant to today’s debate is the suggestion that older homeowners could receive loan guarantees for improvements through the national wealth fund. That would reduce the cost of borrowing for those who want to use it to pay for improvements, as well as crowding in private investment.

There are significant inequalities. According to the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, 3.2 million of those in fuel poverty are pensioner households, with 964,000 pensioner households in deep fuel poverty. People on low incomes are also at greater risk of fuel poverty, as are renters and households with children, as my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Rusholme (Afzal Khan) mentioned. The cost of poor quality housing is colossal; it affects the health and wealth of individuals and the prosperity of the country, and it exacerbates existing inequalities.

There are also inequalities between north and south. In the north of England 41% of homes were built before 1944, 1.47 million homes are considered non-decent and £1 in almost every £4 spent on household heating is being lost due to poor insulation. The cost to the NHS of those non-decent housing conditions is estimated at £588 million per year, in addition to the societal cost of £7.77 billion, according to the Northern Health Science Alliance.

In response to this crisis we see really strong, innovative local efforts. I pay tribute to the charity Groundwork, which provides a “warm homes healthy people” scheme across the Bradford district, including in my Shipley constituency. It installs energy efficient measures, including insulation, and offers support and advice on energy bills.

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

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. While she is looking at good local organisations, let me say that National Energy Action has often said that Stoke-on-Trent ranks first in the country for fuel poverty, but we are very lucky to have Fiona Miller and her team at Beat the Cold, who for 25 years have helped lead the fuel poverty action group in Stoke-on-Trent. They work with a whole variety of organisations to help homeowners and renters look at small local actions that they can take to increase insulation and reduce their bills. Will my hon. Friend join me in encouraging the Minister to tell us what more he and the Department can do to help organisations on the ground today with those small acts that bring down bills before the big roll-out of energy insulation?

[Anna Dixon]

I commend the work of local organisations such as Beat the Cold and the charity Groundwork. I also hope that the Minister will say how he can help support those efforts locally.

Another local project that I would like to pay tribute to is Saltaire Retrofit Reimagined. It is a community-led home retrofit initiative supported by the UK shared prosperity fund, as well as the Footwork Trust and the Shipley area committee. It has focused on improving heating and energy efficiency in our beautiful listed heritage properties within the Saltaire world heritage site. The project engaged with homeowners, tenants and landlords to understand their perspectives on what effective energy and insulation retrofit should look like. Based on that, the team developed bespoke, heritage-sensitive guidance for upgrading listed homes that were originally built in the 1850s and 1860s, and which are some of the most challenging properties to retrofit. The blueprint and toolkit that it has produced removes both time and cost involved for individual homes to get surveys, and provides confidence that they will get planning permission to retrofit their listed homes. Its work is inspiring and supports our national goals to reduce energy and achieve net zero. I invite the Minister to visit Shipley and Saltaire and see at first hand the great work that it is undertaking—it is a national exemplar of heritage retrofit for homes.

Given the clear evidence of harm caused by poor-quality housing, it is concerning that under the previous Government, we saw measures under the energy efficiency obligation plummet from around 80,000 per month in early 2014 to less than 20,000 from mid-2016 to 2020. The Conservatives significantly reduced the rate of energy efficiency installations. Meanwhile, energy bills rocketed. Between 2020 and 2024, UK-based energy companies made a profit of £420 billion. I am proud that Labour not only proposed imposing a windfall tax on oil and gas companies in opposition, but increased it when in Government in 2024. We should adopt the polluter pays principle and ensure that we continue to tax excess profits. I greatly welcome the Government’s warm homes plan, a £13.2 billion commitment designed to improve home energy efficiency, tackle fuel poverty and reduce carbon emissions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin McCluskey]

The letters will be sent, I think, from today. Many of those households will already have received knocks on the door or possibly direct contact from scheme providers. We are clear that the system needs to remediate this in the first instance. The issue was caused by the system, and there are guarantees available through the schemes to ensure that they are remediated. If any Member is dealing with constituents whose audits are not getting done properly or who are having difficulty with the guarantee providers, I ask them please to come directly to me, because we need to know exactly what is happening as this action takes place.

Despite all the actions we are taking on ECO4, we still need to think about the future system. That is why we have committed to reforming the system and to accelerating that process. I can confirm that we are looking at the entire landscape of consumer protection, from how installers work in homes to where people turn for rapid action and enforcement if things go wrong. The Government are planning to consult on the specific proposals early in the new year, and are already working with industry and consumer protection experts to develop and stress-test plans, including through the retrofit system reform advisory panel, which was set up under my predecessor and began work in July.

As this is one of the most urgent challenges that the Government face in our mission to improve the lives of working people, my right hon. and learned Friend the Prime Minister gave me the clearest of instructions on my first day in the job: to reduce bills by making millions more homes warm, safe and fit for the 21st century. We face a number of challenges, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley alluded to. More than 80% of UK homes rely on gas for heating—among the highest percentages in the world, meaning that we are particularly exposed to crises or energy shocks, as we saw after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moreover, we have some of the oldest housing stock in Europe; more than a third of houses were built before the second world war, most with uninsulated walls, meaning that yet more money and fossil fuels are needed to heat them.

My hon. Friend mentioned a project in Saltaire, and I will be more than happy to visit. I have had good and constructive conversations with Members across the House regarding heritage retrofit. That is something we have to address in the new plan.

[Gareth Snell]

Stoke-on-Trent has some of the oldest housing stock in the country: brick-built terraces, single skinned and in some places still single glazed. A programme by the last Labour Government that made a real difference was the housing market renewal programme, which ran up until 2010 and then was unceremoniously guillotined by the incoming Tory Government. It was able to retrofit housing in a style that matched the local communities, but it was done with communities as part of a more progressive regeneration programme. It meant that houses were better looking and warmer, they lasted longer and residents wanted to live there. Why the Tory Government got rid of it I do not know, but it is something the Minister might want to look at for future ideas.

[Martin McCluskey]

I would be more than happy to look at that. I have been working to help develop the warm homes plan and am looking particularly at area-based approaches; one of the most effective is when entire communities and neighbourhoods are upgraded at once. The effect is much larger, and neighbours can see the impact on their bills, which helps to spread the benefit.

The warm homes plan will set out in more detail how we are going to meet the challenge addressed in this debate. We have been working hard behind the scenes to get it right and will publish it in full soon. We have been clear from the moment we came into government about the scale of the ambition. My hon. Friend mentioned £13.5 billion; after the Budget today that number is actually £15 billion, and we have extended our ambition to upgrade 5 million homes.

As a student of history, I think of the first Labour Government in the 1920s with their housing Act—the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1924—which upgraded and subsidised half a million homes. What we are trying to do with the warm homes plan is 10 times that. That is the level of ambition we have. It means entire streets and whole neighbourhoods benefiting from solar panels, heat pumps, home batteries and better insulation. We have already kick-started that. We are not waiting for the plan to get on with delivery. We have allocated £1.8 billion through the warm homes local grant and warm homes social housing fund. We have set out proposals to increase minimum energy efficiency standards in the private rented sector in England and Wales to EPC C or equivalent by 2030 and introduced a minimum standard in the social rented sector, which is incredibly important for many of our constituents. Those measures, combined, will lift hundreds of thousands of households out of poverty.

For homeowners, we are making it cheaper and easier to install a heat pump. To the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), we announced the extension of the boiler upgrade scheme to new technologies last week, and we have an ongoing consultation on alternative technologies. We have doubled the funding for the boiler upgrade scheme to £295 million this year and, because of decisions made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the Budget, we will be increasing it year on year up to 2030. Just this month, as I said, the expansion has meant that we are able to extend the scheme to air-to-air heat pumps, a technology that I know many of our constituents were calling on the Government to make a change on last summer.

While we deliver the plan, we know there has to be short-term as well as longer-term action. That is why we have expanded the warm homes discount this year to every household where the billpayer is on a means-tested benefit. That is £150-worth of support directly to billpayers this winter. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) mentioned Beat the Cold; I met Fiona Miller yesterday and had a very good conversation with her about the work she is doing on data sharing between the NHS and her organisation. That is something I want to look at, and I am keen to visit Stoke-on-Trent Central to see in person the work that Beat the Cold is doing.

All those action that are taking place are good in the short term, but how do we tackle the cost of living and bring energy bills down for good? In the long term, we do that by pushing for our target of clean power by 2030: clean power generated in Britain, which we control and which will end the rollercoaster of energy bills that, bluntly, are at the moment decided by dictators and upheavals beyond our borders. We do that by upgrading homes with electrified, energy-efficient technologies, putting people in a position to benefit directly from clean, secure, affordable energy.

My immediate focus remains on some of the issues that we have heard about today, and on the people across the country living in homes that they can barely afford to heat. As we enter another winter, people should not have to choose between heating and eating. A large part of the reason the Chancellor took the action that she took in today’s Budget is that she wants to stop people having to make those incredibly difficult choices. When we publish it, the warm homes plan will set out our path to a future that we all want to see. We want warmer homes, no matter where we live or whether we rent or own—homes that are smarter, cheaper to run and greener, and are protected by a system that keeps them free of damp, mould and other issues. I welcome this debate, and I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley.

Question put and agreed to.

Energy

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Martin McCluskey]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. With that in mind, I might not take further interventions from hon. Members.

In Carrington in Greater Manchester, there will be 200 jobs in the region—I could go on. All those jobs are what the Conservatives are turning their backs on—the new clean jobs of the future.

While we sprint towards our clean energy goals, we are also doing everything we can to protect those who have borne the brunt of this crisis. As I said, the warm home discount is providing support to an extra 3 million households this winter. We are working with Ofgem to relieve the burden of energy debt that many consumers face. To support British industry, from next year 500 of our most energy-intensive businesses will get a cut to their bills, with thousands more firms getting discounts in 2027.

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

The Minister will know that one of the most energy-intensive industries in the country is the ceramics sector, which cannot go off gas because the technology simply does not exist to change the kilns from gas to electric—that process cannot happen. Under the Conservatives, the sector was excluded from the current supercharger scheme. Will the Government please consider—we beg again—extending the current supercharger scheme to include the ceramics sector, so that we can bring down the electrical costs that it incurs while not being able to look at the gas prices? Thousands of jobs are on the line and places like Stoke-on-Trent need this help. They need it now, and we would be most grateful for anything the Government can do.

[Martin McCluskey]

I know my hon. Friend is a champion for that industry and for his constituents. I will pass that on to colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade, who will look at it.

The previous Government stood idly by as jobs went overseas, but we will not. Through our industrial strategy, we are taking action to reduce industrial electricity prices. We are introducing the British industrial competitiveness scheme from 2027, which will reduce electricity bills by up to 25% for over 7,000 eligible British businesses.

If we want to create new good jobs and revitalise our industrial regions, we must seize the opportunity to make Britain a world leader in clean energy. This is the economic opportunity of the century. The Conservatives seem to want to double down on their record of failure. Do they not want to remember that their failed energy policy caused the worst cost of living crisis in memory for British families? Do they not want to recognise that their plans would mean jobs, investment and growth going to other countries, rather than into our communities? Do they not realise that their plans undermine the very confidence that British businesses now have in the energy transition? Now is not the time to turn to old solutions that have utterly failed, but to seize the incredible opportunities ahead of us. Now is the time to build our clean energy future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Sandher]

I do apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Our plan, which used to be shared across the House, is precisely to invest in cleaner, cheaper energy for all, because we know that wind and solar are 60% cheaper than natural gas. We know that because, after the capital costs, wind and solar are free. As for the network costs, we need to balance them in any case, and renew our grid. That too was an approach that we shared across the House, and it is a shame to see where we are.

Beyond investing in clean energy, which is cheaper, we are also investing in home insulation so that people use less energy at home and bills are lower for families, and they do have faith in us in this place. On top of that, we are redistributing the costs through the warm home discount and the standing charge. I am so glad that the living standards coalition put that forward.

[Gareth Snell]

National Energy Action estimates that Stoke-on-Trent is No. 1 in the country for fuel poverty. According to its analysis, even if we reduce energy bills, as we will do, most of the energy will simply disappear through leaky windows, draughty doors and uninsulated homes. Does my hon. Friend accept, agree and acknowledge that there must be a twin-track approach, and that not only must we bring down the overall cost of energy, but houses must use less energy so that we are cleaner, greener and cheaper?

[Dr Sandher]

The House will be shocked to hear that I do agree. This is about getting bills down for families, which is so important. When homes are insulated, that reduces energy demand as well, which means that our transition is easier and cheaper. When we build and insulate homes, that is not just good for bills, it is not just good for people, but it is good for jobs as well—good non-graduate jobs, of which there are too few in our move to a post-industrial economy.

Most important of all, however, is getting carbon down for good. The decisions that we make now, and the carbon that we emit, will live with us for ever. Either we, in this place and across the country, will make these innovations and live up to our duty to this generation and those in the future—either we will stop emitting carbon, which will mean cheaper and cleaner energy, and our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be thankful to us—or we will not. This is the moment for us to rise to. This is why we are investing in that cheaper, cleaner energy—yes, so that it gets bills down for good, but also to ensure that we live up to the promise we make to the generations to come.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on being a school governor and on the work the school is doing. We can talk about the tangible benefits, but the wider point is that young people want us to act on these issues, and that is part of having an education system that teaches them about the benefits of moving towards clean energy. When I go into schools, there is massive enthusiasm for that kind of initiative.

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

8. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of his Department’s net zero policies on the manufacturing industry.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Chris McDonald)]

I am delighted that my first outing at the Dispatch Box is to answer a question from my hon. Friend, and on a topic that we have worked on so much over the past year. We on the Labour side know that net zero is the greatest economic opportunity of our generation. Unlike the previous Conservative Government, which allowed industry to wither, we do not accept that decarbonisation means deindustrialisation. Through our modern industrial strategy, we are working with business to help it to invest, grow and meet our climate ambition.

[Gareth Snell]

I congratulate the Minister on his well-deserved elevation to the Front Bench. He has worked quite hard with the ceramic sector on this issue. Energy-intensive industries, such as ceramics, are at the mercy of an international gas market over which very few countries have direct control, but one of the things that could help is looking at electricity costs. May I therefore encourage the Minister, in his new role, to consider expanding eligibility for the supercharger scheme so that energy-intensive industries, such as ceramics, can benefit from the support available until the supercharger scheme comes online in 2027?

[Chris McDonald]

My hon. Friend raises an important point about the scope of the supercharger, which we are going to look at in 2026. He will be aware that some parts of the ceramics supply chain can access the supercharger, but I too am concerned about the impacts of high energy costs on the ceramics sector. I will meet the head of Ceramics UK this month, I am chairing a meeting of the Energy Intensive Users Group, and I look forward to further engagement with the sector in the new year.

Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

On redundancy, because of how the company went into insolvency, the workers will be entitled to statutory redundancy. That is not acceptable, given the role that they played in delivering for the company for many years. That is why I have publicly asked the owners of the company to put their hands in their pocket and improve the redundancy package. It is not possible for the Government to improve the package directly, but I am still hopeful that the company owners will do the right thing. We are providing a training guarantee to the workers, from Government funds, to make sure that they have that enhanced support.

I am happy to take away the point about heating oil. We have been assessing the situation over the past few weeks, including a number of weeks during which fuel has not left the refinery at its normal pace, to see what the impact is on supplies across the region. That impact has been minimal. That is partly because a significant amount of fuel and products come from the refinery next door. However, we will continue to monitor that, and if there is an impact on prices, I am happy to look into that.

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

Much like the ceramics sector, the refinery sector is an energy-intensive industry that is at the mercy of industrial energy prices, which are beyond its control but have a huge impact on its viability. It is welcome that the Minister thinks that the energy-intensive certification programme could expand to include the refinery sector, but he will know that the business level test is a huge barrier that needs to be overcome; it means that many companies will not be eligible for the programme. He will also know that the British industry competitiveness scheme is not due to come online for another two years; indeed, consultation on that scheme has yet to be opened. Refineries and ceramics companies are looking down the barrel of ever-increasing industrial energy bills. Will he give them some indication of what help and support is available now, before the new schemes come online, so that we do not have more statements about closed factories in the next few months?

[Michael Shanks]

My hon. Friend is right, and it is deeply frustrating that we inherited many of these issues, which were unresolved for such a long time. These are not problems that arrived in the past 12 months. Bringing in the refinery sector for talks with Government about the challenges would have been a fairly obvious thing to do at least once in the past 13 years. Clearly, that did not occur to the previous Government, and we have inherited challenges.

My hon. Friend is right to say that consultations will take time, unfortunately. It is right that we conduct a proper consultation to make sure that there are not any unintended consequences. The Minister for Industry, who is a Minister in both the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Department for Business and Trade, is looking at how we can do that as quickly as possible. I am happy to follow that up with her. My hon. Friend is also right that nobody wants to be talking about redundancies in any part of our economy, and we are doing everything we can to bring down prices to prevent redundancies.

Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

Let me deal with that on two fronts. First, we have come to the House repeatedly to talk about Grangemouth. I have had meetings with a number of Members over the past year to discuss Grangemouth, probably more than I have had to discuss any other issue, and I have weekly meetings with Scottish Government Ministers, businesses or others to discuss Grangemouth’s future. No one wanted the outcome that we got from Grangemouth, but we have done everything in our power to turn that around and deliver a viable economic future for the site, so I do not entirely accept the hon. Gentleman’s criticism, which I think is misplaced.

Secondly, I apologise to the House for being unable to give explicit details about every part of the business, but one of the problems is that we have not been able to obtain clarity from the company about all the interdependencies within its own business group. We will discuss more of this in the coming days as we engage with the official receiver. It is important to separate the issue of insolvency for the refinery—the specific issue that we are discussing today—from the wider group issues, but I have no doubt that we will return to some of those in due course.

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

The shadow Secretary of State mentioned Moorcroft in Stoke. A small glimmer of light in what is otherwise a rather gloomy story is the rescue of that company by Will Moorcroft, the grandson of its founder, and the jobs that are potentially coming back. However, those jobs were put at risk, much like the jobs at this refinery, because of the eye-watering industrial energy costs that we face in this country. The Government have announced the British industrial competitive scheme, but it will not come alive for industrial energy prices until 2027, which is two years away.

I thought I heard the Minister say that the Government would consider the potential for changing the criteria for the energy intensive industry compensation scheme to bring in new sectors that could be offered some immediate help and some respite between now and the introduction of that scheme. If that is the case, will the Minister be clear about it at the Dispatch Box, and if he is able to look at the EIIC criteria, can he also look at the existing energy supercharger scheme, which would give ceramics companies in my constituency access to the support that they need in order to continue to thrive?

[Michael Shanks]

My hon. Friend is right to mention the impact of high electricity costs across industry. Since we came to office we have been doing everything possible—through the industrial strategy, and through other work that my colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade have been doing—to try to drive down energy costs, and we are doing wider work across the energy system to deliver clean power by 2030, and to bring down bills and reduce the volatility in bills that affects too many households and businesses throughout the country. We are looking at all the possible options, and I have said to the refinery sector that we are willing to look at all the schemes on a case-by-case basis. There is no easy answer to many of these questions, but we will, for example, consider eligibility for the industrial competitiveness scheme following the consultation that will open shortly, and it will be reviewed in due course.

I understand that the question relates to how fast we can move on some of these matters, but we need to ensure that we get this right, and we are doing everything we can, where we can, to move faster with some of the decisions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I would be delighted to meet the hon. Member and talk about her plans.

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

What assurances can the Minister give me that energy-intensive industries in Stoke-on-Trent, such as ceramics, will benefit from the investment coming from this Government and will not get left behind in our transition to net zero?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We were talking about this issue in the Tea Room only this morning, and I will meet the ceramics sector and him first thing in the new year to talk about some of the challenges it faces. We are absolutely committed to supporting the sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s question—which I must say is somewhat of a surprise. I will absolutely meet him to discuss that. We have been clear that any technologies can be part of the solution and, if that can be part of the picture, I will meet him to discuss the options and the technology more generally.

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

One of the ways in which we can increase energy security is through community-owned and co-operative energy schemes. They give greater control to local people, who get a say in where profits go, and crucially they build resilience from international energy markets. Will the Minister say a bit more about where community-owned energy will fit into the energy security plan?

[Michael Shanks]

I thank my hon. Friend for that incredibly important question. Community energy has so many benefits in our energy mix, including giving communities a stake in our energy future. We also know that there are many social and economic benefits that come from that. We are committed to our local power plan, which will deliver investment in community-owned projects. Great British Energy will have a key role to play in supporting communities, capacity building and in that initial funding to help them deliver these projects.