Home Insulation Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Energy Security & Net Zero
Peter Dowd
Main Page: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)Department Debates - View all Peter Dowd's debates with the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero
Home Insulation
Peter Dowd Excerpts(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Peter Dowd (in the Chair)
I will call Anna Dixon to move the motion and then I will call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they can only make a speech with the prior permission of both the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the impact of home insulation on energy bills.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. Across the country, 12 million households are in fuel poverty, with almost 5 million of them spending over 20% of their income on energy. Like many other people across the country, my constituents in Shipley face a cost of living crisis, and energy bills are a huge part of that crisis.
Increasing the energy efficiency of our homes is a crucial way in which we can reduce bills, yet the rate of home insulation installations declined under the previous Government. I am pleased that this Labour Government have taken positive steps to reverse that decline with the warm homes plan. In addition, I particularly welcome today’s Budget announcement by the Chancellor to scrap the disastrous Tory energy company obligation scheme, which cost more than £1 billion per year and cost many families more money than it saved. All of this will bring down energy bills for the average household by £150 from next April, reducing the cost of living and lifting more people out of fuel poverty.
However, there is an urgent need to upgrade our homes. The UK’s housing stock is among the least energy efficient in Europe. According to research by Imperial College London, homes in the UK lose heat up to three times faster than homes in the rest of Europe. Perhaps that is not surprising, given that almost a quarter of properties in Great Britain with cavity walls have no cavity wall insulation.