Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to help encourage local authorities to utilise the Housing Revenue Account to insulate and retrofit local authority housing stock to help improve their sustainable standards.

The Government is committed to seeing the social housing sector play a leading role in decarbonising the country’s homes—as shown by its commitment to a £3.8 billion Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, to which over £1 billion has already been allocated. Housing Revenue Accounts (HRAs) are the means by which councils pay for all investment in housing quality, including decarbonisation. Social housing quality standards already mandate up to date insulation standards in council homes

In the Social Housing White Paper, we committed to review the Decent Homes Standard to ensure it is delivering what is needed for safety and decency now and the Levelling Up White Paper set out our intention to consult on making the Decent Homes Standard a regulatory requirement in the Private Rented Sector. We have set an ambition to halve the number of non-decent homes in all rented sectors by 2030 with the biggest improvements in the lowest-performing areas. Part 1 of the Decent Homes Review, which looked at the social sector only, concluded last year.