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

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, pursuant to the Answer of 15 March 2016 to Question 26458, how much investment in energy efficiency measures (a) was made during the last Parliament and (b) will be made during this Parliament.

Government policies supported investment of around £7.4bn on energy efficiency measures¹ over the last parliament.

This included spending of:

£2.9bn on ECO and the Green Deal²

£3.8bn on CERT

£0.7bn on CESP^3,4

During the course of this parliament, Government policies are expected to support investment of around £3.6bn. This includes spending of⁵:

£1.7bn on ECO⁶

£1.9bn on ECO’s successor⁷

£0.1bn on the Green Deal⁸

The planned level of spend this parliament reflects Government’s desire to minimise the impact of energy efficiency policies on consumers’ energy bills, reduce reliance on subsidies, and set long-term policy frameworks. Government intends to focus investment on the households that need it most, with the aim of tackling the root causes of fuel poverty.

We are working to deliver our schemes more efficiently by reducing administrative complexity. This will improve the overall value for money and ensure as much of the cost of the schemes as possible goes towards delivery.

A reformed domestic supplier obligation (ECO) from April 2017 will upgrade the energy efficiency of over 200,000 homes per year for the 5 years to 2022, tackling the root cause of fuel poverty. Our extension of the Warm Home Discount to 2020/21 at current levels of £320m per annum will also help vulnerable households with their energy bills.

Together through ECO and Warm Home Discount we will be spending nearly £1 billion a year helping with energy bills. We expect to increase our spending focused on fuel poverty from April 2017 and again in April 2018.

We intend to focus our efforts through ECO and WHD more effectively on the fuel poor, and will be consulting on our future approach in the forthcoming months.

Footnotes:

[1] Supporting costs by measure type are not available, so it is not possible to provide spend on insulation measures specifically.

[2] Source: Green Deal and ECO stats https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/household-energy-efficiency-national-statistics-headline-release-february-2016

[3] Please note that as CERT ran from April 2008 – December 2012, and CESP from Sept 2009 – December 2012, these include some spend prior to 2010.

[4] Source CERT Evaluation https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/evaluation-of-the-carbon-emissions-reduction-target-and-community-energy-saving-programme (figures adjusted for inflation)

[5] Figures may not add up to £3.6bn due to rounding.

[6] Estimated ECO spend (April 2015- March 2017), as reported Future of the energy supplier obligation IA https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/373650/ECO_IA_with_SoS_e-sigf_v2.pdf. Note that suppliers over delivered against their ECO 1 targets (January 2013- March 2015), so actual spend by suppliers may be lower than estimated in the IA. Figures are adjusted for inflation.

[7] Supplier spend consistent with the 2015 Spending Review announcement https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/479749/52229_Blue[_Book_PU1865_Web_Accessible.pdf (page 39).

[8] Based on estimated Green Deal plans, Green Communities, and Green Deal Home improvement Fund spending from May 2015 to April 2020.