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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to ensure that the building of new homes is done to sustainable specifications.

From 2025, the Future Homes Standard will make sure that new homes produce at least 75% lower CO2 emissions compared to those built to current standards. In the short term, this represents a considerable improvement in the energy efficiency standards for new homes. Homes built under the Future Homes Standard will be future proofed with low carbon heating and high levels of energy efficiency. They will be ‘zero carbon ready’, meaning that in the longer term, no further retrofit work for energy efficiency will be necessary to enable them to become zero-carbon homes as the electricity grid continues to decarbonise.

We must make sure that all parts of industry are ready to meet the Future Homes Standard from 2025, which will be challenging to deliver in practice and at scale, by supporting industry to take a first step towards the new standard. Later this year we will introduce an interim uplift in Part L standards that provides a stepping stone to the Future Homes Standard and will require new homes to produce 31% less CO2 emissions compared to current standards. This will deliver high-quality homes that are in line with our broader housing commitments and encourage homes that are future proofed for the longer-term.