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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the number of people reliant on oil for heating in (a) Midlothian constituency, (b) Scotland and (c) the UK.

Survey data only exists at a national level for the numbers of properties that use oil as a main heating source.

In Scotland, as reported in the Scottish House Condition Survey (https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-house-condition-survey-2019-key-findings/pages/4/), 129,000 households (5 per cent) used oil as their primary heating fuel in 2019.

In England, as reported in the English Housing Survey (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/energy-performance), 762,000 dwellings (3.2 per cent) used oil central heating as their main heating system in 2020.

In Wales, as reported in the Welsh Housing Conditions Survey (https://gov.wales/welsh-housing-conditions-survey-energy-efficiency-dwellings-april-2017-march-2018), 135,000 dwellings (10 per cent) used oil as their primary heating fuel in 2017-18. These figures also use published Household estimates (https://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Housing/Households/Estimates/households-by-localauthority-year) for the number of households.

In Northern Ireland, as reported in the Northern Ireland Housing Statistics 526,190 dwellings (67.5 per cent) used oil as their primary heating fuel in 2016.