Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department is taking steps to provide support to people whose property was previously eligible for a Warm Home Discount payment but is no longer eligible and has a low energy performance certificate rating.
Answered by Graham Stuart
Households not receiving rebates under the Warm Home Discount may still be able to receive assistance under the Industry Initiatives element of the scheme. This can include benefit entitlement checks, financial assistance, debt-write off, energy advice as well as energy efficiency measures. Over 327,000 households were helped under that route last winter.
For longer-lasting reductions in their energy bills, low-income households may be eligible for energy efficiency measures through government schemes including the Energy Company Obligation (ECO), Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and Home Upgrade Grant. Over 39% of households in Bradford West have benefitted from energy efficiency measures installed under ECO since 2013.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to ensure that the Warm Home Discount helpline is accessible for users with disabilities.
Answered by Graham Stuart
Ofcom requires all landline and mobile telephone communications providers to provide a number of services for customers with disabilities, including access to an approved text relay service. The Warm Home Discount helpline has operators trained in taking calls from text relay services. The helpline also has a step-by-step Interactive Voice Response interface at the beginning of calls to help users navigate the service.
In addition to the telephone service, users can write to the Warm Home Discount helpline at: 110552 Warm Home Discount Scheme, PO Box 26965, Glasgow, G1 9BW.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that people who do not have a direct relationship with an energy supplier benefit from the Energy Support Scheme.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Energy Bills Support Scheme Alternative Funding will provide support of £400 for energy bills for around 900,000 households without a domestic electricity supply. Those eligible for the Energy Bills Support Scheme Alternative Funding will need to submit a short online form via the Government’s GOV.UK pages, with the application portal due to open this month.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what support is in place for home owners with 25 year leases on solar panels, who are unable to get any equity from a Mortgage lender, or able to buy out or amend their solar panel leases.
Answered by Greg Hands
The Government is aware that homeowners have leased their roof space to receive free solar panels under commercial “rent a roof” schemes. Under these arrangements, the panel providers remain owners of the equipment and receive the Feed-in Tariffs (FIT) payments from the energy supplier, while the homeowner benefits from the savings they make on their electricity bills.
The FIT scheme allowed for such assignment of rights to FIT payments, but it did not prescribe how such arrangements should work: it was for the parties involved to arrive at a mutually beneficial agreement. While the FIT was a government scheme which provided the framework for an investment opportunity, the various marketing approaches and offers that commercial ‘rent a roof’ companies employed were not government schemes.