13:30 Jim Shannon (DUP)

The covid-19 pandemic highlighted prevailing health inequalities in our society. The most vulnerable are more likely to live in unhealthy homes that are damp, energy-inefficient, noisy, poorly ventilated and crowded. The inextricable link between our health and wellbeing, and the homes and buildings where we work, rest and play, is clear—never more so than during the pandemic. There were a great many negatives to the pandemic, and it emphasised some of the areas where improvement can take place. Having to spend more time in our homes, with many more people working remotely, emphasised the impact that our homes and buildings have on our health. Unhealthy housing impacts on economic growth, business performance, educational attainment, life chances, climate change and our nation’s health and wellbeing. Therefore, it makes sense to join up policy thinking, frameworks and standards and to ensure that all future housing, net zero and health policies do not contribute to, cause or exacerbate poor health and wellbeing.

We must also recognise the cost benefits of improving and levelling up our homes and communities, to remove health inequalities and positively contribute to the climate agenda. We cannot ignore climate change; it is a reality. When we build our homes, we must recognise that we need more energy efficiency. We want to meet the Government’s net zero 2050 target, to which this United Kingdom is committed.

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14:08 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Andrew Stephenson)

We recognise that the UK economy is made up of many different local economies with different characteristics, opportunities and challenges. We therefore aim to achieve and sustain strong economic growth by unleashing the untapped potential of places around the UK. That does not mean we want to dampen down the success of London or the growth of the south-east. We want to grow the whole economy, focusing on every part of the country. We want to ensure that we support growing parts of the economy—for example, life sciences in the north-west of England, advanced manufacturing in the midlands, semiconductors in Wales, renewable energy in East Anglia and fintech in Northern Ireland.

Several hon. Members talked about the importance of energy efficiency and decarbonisation, including the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) in his intervention. As I said, we will make sure that rented homes are warm and dry. To meet that aim, we will deliver our net zero target, requiring all of our housing stock to become more energy-efficient. My Department is working closely on that with colleagues from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Improving the energy performance of our buildings presents an opportunity to provide warm, well ventilated spaces and healthy environments in which people can live and work. That will avoid physical illnesses such as heart and lung conditions—again, issues that were spoken about passionately by the hon. Member for Coventry North West and the shadow Minister.

The journey to net zero buildings starts with better energy performance and improving the energy efficiency of homes and buildings. It is a no-regrets action. That is why we are committed to upgrading as many homes as possible to energy performance certificate band C by 2035, as a cost-effective, practical and affordable step. Building on this, we have committed to consider setting a long-term regulatory standard to improve social housing to EPC band C, and we will consult on this in 2023.

Improving the energy efficiency of homes is also the best long-term method of reducing energy costs for vulnerable households and those living in fuel poverty. Our target is to ensure that as many fuel-poor homes as is reasonably practicable achieve a minimum energy rating of band C by 2030. To this end, we are investing £12 billion in Help to Heat schemes to make people’s homes warmer and cheaper to heat. We will deliver upgrades to more than half a million homes in the coming years through our social housing decarbonisation fund, the home upgrade grant scheme and the energy company obligation scheme. To future proof buildings, the heat and building strategy also commits us to considering overheating risk and indoor air quality when developing future decarbonisation policies.

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14:25 Jim Shannon (DUP)

On a fair deal for private renters, the Minister referred to the rating system to target enforcement. That is really good in the context of those who, for whatever reason, decline or respond slower than they should. He talked about people being “warm, safe and secure”. If we had to pick three words to sum up this debate and the targets we are all trying to achieve, they would be warm, safe and secure. He also referred to net zero and better energy efficiency, which are all things we would like to see.

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