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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the Government’s heat strategy will include proposals to remove the fuel cost element of the Energy Performance Certificate for rural (i) homeowners and (ii) landlords living off the gas grid.

I have committed to publishing a Heat Policy Roadmap in 2020 which will set out the programme of work required to enable key strategic decisions in the first part of the 2020s over the future of low-carbon heating. BEIS officials will be working closely with stakeholders as they develop its content.

Following a commitment in the Clean Growth Strategy, we launched a Call for Evidence on Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), which closed in October 2018 with 229 responses which we are currently analysing. In the Call for Evidence we asked for views on the current EPC cost rating and the results will inform our views on future EPC policy.