14:30 Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)

Twenty-six per cent. of the north’s carbon emissions come from our homes—26%. If we are to tackle climate change and meet net zero, we have to do something about that 26%, in addition to all the other things that we are doing. Despite all the house building going on around the country, the UK’s housing stock is generally older than that across the rest of Europe. And in the north, we have a higher percentage of older properties than the rest of the country: 24% of all homes in the north were built before 1919, and 41% were built before 1944. These older homes are largely beautiful, characterful properties that provide us with the backdrop to much of our northern constituencies, but they pose serious issues when it comes to energy efficiency. Solid walls prevent the use of cavity insulation, and planning constraints require buildings to retain their character, making exterior work harder. That is alongside many other issues. Our Victorian terraces have proved particularly difficult to treat. However, we must find solutions to ensure that these homes are fit for the future. Future generations will thank us for our foresight in preserving these homes and doing our bit to save the planet.

The poor energy efficiency of homes in the north only serves to make our higher rates of fuel poverty even worse, compounding the problem. In my region, the north-east, we have the third highest levels of fuel poverty in England. Even before the price cap increased, 14% of households in Darlington and 15% in County Durham were classed as fuel-poor. Decarbonising homes and making them more energy efficient has the potential to offer part of the long-term solution to fuel poverty. Insulating homes better and reducing the reliance on fossil fuels to heat homes means less money spent on wasted energy, less money spent. It is a win-win for our homes, their residents and the environment.

I must acknowledge the work that the Government have done so far to tackle this issue. The heat and buildings strategy was published in October 2021, setting out the Government’s planned approach to reducing emissions from heating buildings. The social housing decarbonisation fund has awarded £179 million to 69 projects.

Being familiar with my hon. Friend’s constituency, I well understand the situation and issues that his constituents face, as they are similar to those in my own. I was about to say that the Tees Valley Combined Authority has secured £2.6million from the social housing decarbonisation fund, from which homes in Darlington will benefit. I am grateful for that, and I welcome the contribution that my hon. Friend has secured for his constituency.

Although progress is under way on decarbonisation and retrofitting, we still have a long way to go, but I want to focus on the need to tackle the huge cost currently associated with making our homes more energy efficient. We cannot achieve decarbonisation while it remains financially unviable for homeowners, private landlords and housing associations to pay for the work. We also need to ensure that we bring communities with us as we embark on this challenge. Recent research by Onward found that people think that the invasion of Ukraine means we should be moving more quickly on net zero, but retrofitting a home is intrusive work, and many people do not see it as a priority for them. We need to be clear what the benefit of this work is to our communities, and the connection between home heating and reaching net zero must be emphasised. How can the Government make it clear to communities how they stand to benefit from more energy efficient homes? That is a challenge that I hope the Minister can respond to.

As part of my preparation for the debate, I have been in contact with Angela Lockwood and Emma Speight at North Star Housing to discuss the difficulties faced by housing associations when it comes to decarbonisation and retrofitting their properties. In short, they are fully supportive of moves to decarbonise homes, but the costs involved are prohibitive. To illustrate this, they made me aware of a pilot decarbonisation project that they are carrying out on a two-bedroom, late-Victorian terraced house in Middlesbrough that they are aiming to get to EPC level A, so that they can then monitor the performance of the building.

I have the figures in front of me. North Star Housing calculates that the cost of decarbonisation work will be £45,500, with £12,000 going on solid wall insulation alone. While the work is being carried out, the property must sit empty for around 20 weeks, resulting in a void period and a loss of rental income. Given that other houses on the same street are valued at around £70,000, North Star Housing is looking at spending well over half of the value of a property in order to decarbonise it. It is simply not viable for housing associations to be spending that much to decarbonise their stock without targeted support and assistance.

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14:53 Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)

I begin by congratulating my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson), on securing this important debate. Although energy efficiency has always been important from an environmental standpoint, the significant increase in energy costs that the UK is experiencing has made it more relevant than ever. Cost of living pressures, and the changing economics of gas and green energy, have significantly increased the opportunities provided by energy efficiency. The cost of gas has increased dramatically, but the cost of installing a heat pump or something similar has not moved. However, the economics are changing massively, in terms of how this will play out.

We have many different styles of housing in the constituency, so we need a range of insulation options. The same is true about our move to green energy. The local geography provides particular challenges and opportunities. Former mining villages, where houses are close together, are suitable for district heating systems. Geothermal heating is also a possibility in County Durham due to the former mines. Some of my colleagues recently wrote in The Times that the Durham Energy Institute at Durham University has led the way on that research for a while. Support of such solutions can make a huge difference for residents and home owners, whether they are individuals or landlords. I believe that the solutions are out there, and I would like to continue to support the variety of initiatives that help, whether that is supporting insulation, addressing empty properties or promoting the transition to options that could be greener and more cost efficient in the long term, such as a district heating system—possibly even driven by the utilisation of mine water heating. Those opportunities, once in place, can be cheap to run and environmentally efficient. I am confident that we have the solutions to the north-east’s domestic energy problems, but it is a question of ensuring that they reach the households that need them. The Government have made progress in this area. I look forward to them continuing that and taking further steps.

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15:00 Mike Amesbury (Labour)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Robertson. I thank the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for giving us all the opportunity to be here to debate and ask questions of the Minister on this vital subject. Retrofitting homes, and ensuring that new homes are built to meet energy-efficient standards, is one of the most important things we can do to meet our net zero commitments by 2050. It was only in 2019 that Parliament declared a climate emergency. To reach net zero, we have to insulate Britain and if we do not, we will miss those targets by a mile.

In conclusion, I have three questions for the Minister. How will he respond and focus on the long term—despite the current challenges—rather than on the short term, in getting to net zero by 2050? What support will be given to the private rented sector and landlords on retrofitting? What investment is going into stimulating green hydrogen, beyond blue hydrogen, with our various projects, whether in the north-east or in the north-west, which are fantastic for energy-intensive industries? We need that investment, and we need it now.

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15:12 Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) on securing this important debate. The energy efficiency of homes is incredibly important as we face the challenges of climate change, cutting emissions and the cost of living crisis, with sharp increases in energy costs that will be devastating for many of my constituents. It goes without saying, but we all know that the north is colder than the rest of the country, so I am not surprised that he chose to focus on that part of the country for the debate.

Finally, I want to say a few words about new build. My constituent Colin, who is an architect, has designed a series of ultra low energy net zero carbon homes. The homes follow the same principles of the award-winning Passivhaus that Colin designed for himself and his wife Jenny in 2013. I have visited the house on a number of occasions and it is incredibly impressive. The house is based on the Passivhaus energy design standard developed in Germany and is designed to provide a high level of comfort, while using very little energy for heating and cooling. Colin and Jenny’s home features triple glazing, LED lighting and an air source heat pump. It costs less than £70 for a year’s supply of energy for heating, lighting, hot water and cooking. It is inspirational and I think we are all quite shocked to hear that figure, but it shows that it can be done and, with political will, the Government could make that happen at scale.

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15:16 Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)

Bearing in mind that issue, we also have a huge gap between the emissions from new build properties and those from existing dwellings. Indeed, the north-east has one of the largest gaps between emissions from new and old properties. In the north-east, there are emissions of just over 1.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from a new property, compared with over twice that amount—3.6 tonnes per year—for existing properties. So there is a huge job to be done, particularly in properties in the north of England, to help us get to our net zero targets and to retrofit properties throughout the country.

The call from the hon. Member for Darlington for much more work to be done on the energy retrofit of properties is important for climate change purposes and for future energy bills. It is estimated that £400 to £500 can be saved from energy bills in an uprated energy-efficient property. It is also important for the comfort and good living that we expect in any household in the country. The problem relating to damp and older properties is not just in his part of the world, but in the north generally. This debate is timely and important, and we must have the retrofit debate in the not too distant future.

I cannot be entirely non-political in this debate, as the hon. Member suggested we should be, although we all agree in this Chamber on what we want to do with retrofitted properties and on why it is important and relevant to climate change, fuel poverty and the welfare of citizens.

As I think every Member present this afternoon has said, this is a pressing problem that needs to be sorted out as quickly as possible, and on the widest scale that is compatible with our net zero commitment and the duty we have towards our citizens’ style of living, energy bills and expectations of what their housing will look like in future years. Pushing forward on that is something we in this Chamber are completely united on, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to that unity of purpose.

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15:40 The Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change (Greg Hands)

This Government’s unwavering commitment to decarbonise the country’s 30 million buildings has the welfare of those who most need energy-efficient homes at its very core. Getting to net zero is not just a legal commitment; it is the right policy for this and future generations. Improving the wellbeing and living conditions of northern communities is a key part of the levelling up of all our towns, cities and regions as we build a green Britain that works for every part of the country.

We have prioritised the worst performing low-income homes to receive measures such as external wall insulation and clean heating systems. That has already lifted thousands of households out of fuel poverty, and future phases of home decarbonisation will upgrade over half a million more. Families who would not be able to afford energy efficiency improvements for themselves will be able to face future winters knowing that they will be warm, sometimes for the first time.

Our local authority delivery scheme and home upgrade grant empower local authorities, which know their communities and housing stock best, to decarbonise local homes according to specific needs. In the north, around £226 million of funding has been allocated to local areas through the latest phases of those schemes. As many Members have said, the north of England has benefited disproportionately from the energy company obligation. Since that scheme started under this Government in 2013, over 13% of homes in the north-west and over 12% of homes in the north-east have received energy efficiency measures. Indeed, 12.2% of households in Darlington have had their homes improved under the energy company obligation, compared with an average of 9% across Great Britain.

The hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) asked about using legitimate builders, not cowboys. All insulations under Government schemes, including ECO, the social housing decarbonisation fund, the home upgrade grant and the local authority delivery scheme, must be completed by TrustMark-registered businesses, adhering to the latest requisite standards. These requirements are based on the recommendation of the “Each House Counts” review, an independent review of consumer protections and standards.

My hon. Friends the Members for Sedgefield and for Darlington referred to retrofitting, as did other hon. Members. Our £1.8 million green home finance innovation fund, which completed in March 2022, was a key early step in supporting the lending community to design, develop and pilot green finance products for homeowners. The Government will provide up to a further £20 million to support the development of innovative green finance products and services that will diversify the green finance market and enable both owner-occupiers and private landlords to decarbonise their homes and improve thermal comfort.

The hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) asked whether we will give money to local regions, such as Liverpool City Council, to retrofit. I can tell her that phase 2 of the local authority delivery scheme allocated £300 million to the five local net zero hubs, which will work with their local authorities to continue to deliver energy efficiency upgrades to up to 30,000 homes across England to those most in need. In this Parliament £6.6 million has been spent on energy efficiency, and a great deal of that has been assigned to local authorities via the home upgrade grant, the LAD scheme and the social housing decarbonisation fund. In LAD 2 funding, the regional allocation of £52.8 million is going to the north-west—the hon. Lady’s region.

Later this year, the social housing decarbonisation fund is due to launch its second wave of funding to 2025, from the £800 million committed in the heat and buildings strategy to install energy efficiency measures in social homes. The first wave of that funding is investing £63 million in retrofitting around 8,000 homes in the north of England.

Improving the wellbeing and living conditions of northern communities is a key element of the levelling-up agenda that we have embedded across all Departments, with the ambition that by 2030 the number of non-decent rented homes will have fallen by 50%, with the biggest improvements in the lowest performing areas. We know there are significant regional variations in emission levels and communities will face different challenges when meeting net zero commitments. The north accounts for around a quarter of the UK’s emissions, so it is well placed to make a huge contribution to UK decarbonisation.

The north is in a key position at the centre of net zero innovation, growth and opportunities for green jobs. For example, the new Lancashire Energy HQ, part of Blackpool and The Fylde College provides state-of-the-art training for excellence in energy standards; it was good to hear an intervention earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton). Centres like that may provide job and skill development opportunities for many in communities benefiting from our domestic retrofit programmes. In fact, we expect the decarbonisation of buildings to support up to 240,000 jobs by 2035, resulting in £10 billion additional gross added value by 2035.

In my Department, we know that we need to remove virtually all emissions from buildings to reach net zero. We also know that we have a duty to protect those who are most vulnerable, and to support consumers and businesses as we decarbonise our buildings. I want to ensure that consumers will benefit from higher energy performance in homes and workplaces, from improved health and comfort and from lower emissions and lower bills. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington for proposing this excellent and well-informed debate.

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