Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Government is taking to increase the roll-out of energy efficiency measures for non-fuel poor households.

The Clean Growth Strategy, published in October this year, set out the Government’s aspiration that as many homes as possible will be upgraded to an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Band C by 2035, where practical, cost-effective and affordable. The Strategy outlined a number of policies and proposals that will help us make progress against this aspiration and will increase the roll-out of energy efficiency measures for non-fuel poor households, including

1. Developing a long term trajectory to improve the energy performance standards of privately rented homes, with the aim of upgrading as many as possible to EPC Band C by 2030 where practical, cost-effective and affordable. We will consider options with a view to consulting on this in 2018 and looking at how social housing can meet equivalent standards over the same period.
2. Consulting on strengthening energy performance standards for new and existing homes under Building Regulations, including futureproofing new homes for low carbon heating systems, following the outcome of the independent review of Building Regulations and fire safety, and subject to its conclusions.
3. Seeking evidence on building a market for energy efficiency, including additional measures to improve energy performance of owner occupied homes through a Call for Evidence published alongside the Clean Growth Strategy. This Call for Evidence is currently open and closes on 9 January 2018. Following an evaluation of the responses, we will publish an action plan on additional market based measures.