Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

10. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

16. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Amber Rudd)]

Over 750,000 homes were improved under the green deal and ECO between January 2013 and June 2014, and we are on track to meet our target of improving the energy efficiency of 1 million homes by March 2015. A further 20,000 homes could be improved under the green deal home improvement fund, which has a pipeline of work over the coming months. In the longer term, we are providing certainty for the market through the extension of ECO until 2017 and up to £120 million of funding in each of the next two years for future schemes.

[Amber Rudd]

The Government are very aware of the efforts that small businesses make and want to support them, as we continue to do in every Department. The answer to the question is that, because of the outstanding success of the green deal home improvement fund, we are making every effort to ensure that every voucher is correct. The hon. Gentleman has described a situation that would not be in accordance with the rules of the green deal home improvement fund, and it is for that reason that we must be absolutely certain that every application is correct, because we are looking after taxpayers’ money.

[Grahame M. Morris]

Last year the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), said that he would have sleepless nights if fewer than 10,000 people had signed up to the green deal by the end of the year. The latest figures I have seen show that just over 1,800 people have signed up. I welcome the new Minister to her post, but may I inquire how well she is sleeping?

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. I am sleeping perfectly well, but I am also enjoying standing up here today. I think that he is referring to the green deal finance plan, rather than the green deal itself. Green deal measures continue to be a great success and people can fund them however they want; some do so through the green deal finance plan, and some do so through other sources.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Hancock]

Having a joined-up strategy so that when there is further development in the UK continental shelf we ensure that the whole supply chain is in a position to benefit is an important part of our long-term economic plan—it was great to hear the Secretary of State talk about our long-term economic plan. It is undoubtedly important that, as has happened over many decades, the whole supply chain in the UK benefits from development and exploitation of our indigenous reserves.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

T5. I would like to press the Secretary of State on answers he gave earlier about support for the remnants of the coal industry. Thousands of coal miners’ jobs are hanging by a thread, yet his response was that there were issues about committing to closure, but that is not necessarily a problem as long as those pits are allowed to exhaust their known reserves.

[Mr Davey]

What I have said—and what other Ministers have said—is that the Government have worked incredibly closely not just with the commercial companies involved but with unions and others to help everybody come to a result. I have to tell the House, however, that the coal industry is not nationalised; it is in private hands, and we need to work with the commercial operators.