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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps he has taken to promote the installation of insulation in homes.

The Energy Company Obligation (ECO), worth £640m per annum, requires larger energy suppliers to install energy efficiency measures, including insulation. Since January 2013, around 2.5 million measures have been installed in nearly 2 million homes under the scheme; around two thirds of measures have been insulation.

The latest iteration of the scheme, ECO3, is focussed entirely on low income and vulnerable households and will last until March 2022. We estimate that around 1 million insulation measures will be installed under ECO3.

Furthermore, the domestic private rented sector minimum energy efficiency standards, which were introduced in April 2018, require private landlords to upgrade their properties to an EPC Band E or better and we estimate that around 40% (350,000) of the measures installed as a result will be insulation measures.

We have also taken steps to encourage consumers to take action themselves, including through the creation of the Simple Energy Advice portal to offer impartial information and advice on energy efficiency measures and working with industry to establish the TrustMark quality mark to help improve consumer confidence in measures such as insulation.