Future Homes Standard

Question

15:26:00

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to introduce the Future Homes Standard to ensure that new homes are energy efficient.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and I declare my interest as chair of Peers for the Planet.

I thank the noble Baroness for her Question and for all the work that she does on environmental issues. The Future Homes Standard consultation, setting out proposals for new energy efficiency standards, closed last year. We received over 2,000 responses and we are carefully considering the feedback received. I do understand that the space caused by the election has caused more delay than we had hoped for, and the frustration and the need for creating some certainty here about what we are going to do going ahead. But we will publish our government response to the consultation and lay the associated legislation later this year. Those new standards will effectively preclude the use of gas boilers in future new-build homes and ensure they become zero carbon as the electricity grid fully decarbonises, without the need for any retrofitting.

I am grateful to the Minister for that response. The bit I picked out was “later this year”. We are in January and, as she acknowledged, we have been waiting a long time for this. So I encourage her to have a government response to the consultation as soon as possible. Does she agree that the abandoning of energy efficiency standards that took place a decade ago has caused great damage to many people and has caused great costs to householders, and indeed to the Treasury for the support it had to give during the energy crisis? When the Government do respond to the consultation, will they ensure that the standards set are aimed at providing the lowest possible bills for householders and will avoid their need, to which she referred, for retrofitting?

I agree that we need to move on as quickly as possible with all of this, for three key reasons. We need to make sure that bills are kept as low as possible, particularly for those in fuel poverty who we are very conscious of, and the move to clean energy will help us with that. We also need to think about our energy security and we need to continue the drive towards net zero. I appreciate the frustration in delivering this, and when I say “later this year”, I want to reassure the noble Baroness that we are working with our colleagues in DESNZ as quickly as possible to deliver this, to set homes and buildings on a path away from the use of fossil fuels and to future-proof homes with low-carbon heating and high levels of building fabric standards, ensuring that they do not require any retrofitting to become zero carbon. We are working very hard on that and it is my mission to deliver that as quickly as possible.

My Lords, this is not the first time that I have asked this question: could the Minister advise why it is not mandatory for new-build homes to have at least solar or photovoltaic panels on their roofs?

I just want to say that we do understand the effectiveness of solar panels in providing a direct and sustainable way to harness renewable energy and to allow homes to generate their own electricity, as well as offering the significant savings that will help with fuel bills. It is my absolute intention that the new building regulation standards that will be introduced this year will encourage the use of rooftop solar panels. I am working very fast with my honourable friend Minister Fahnbulleh to drive this forward as quickly as possible. We need to confirm the technical detail of the standards and we will share more details of them as soon as we are able.

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that, by being ambitious here, we have the opportunity to drive growth in renewable sectors such as the heat pump sector while also delivering homes that will be fit for the future, both for the cold that we expect and the excessively warmer temperatures that are now becoming more normal?

My noble friend is quite right that, as we set out in our Plan for Change, our growth agenda and our drive towards net zero are not exclusive: there is no conflict between them. I see three major opportunities for us here: great jobs, training, skills and apprenticeships for our young people, both in construction and in retrofitting; manufacturing capability for technology such as heat pumps, solar and maybe many new aspects of that; and building on our country’s fantastic reputation for innovation as we develop the green technologies of the future. These things are totally compatible with our growth agenda.

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of a housing association. Housing associations are a key provider of homes for those who can least afford high energy bills. What support will there be for housing associations when they are bidding for grants to subsidise the properties they are building? It does cost that bit extra, maybe £5,000 or £6,000 per home, to build to the standards that we need to.

I understand the issue; in fact, I met the National Housing Federation just last week to discuss these issues. We want to drive forward the delivery of affordable housing, particularly social housing, and we recognise the costs that will make. We will be considering, once we have set the standard, what that cost might be and what further support we might offer.

My Lords—

My Lords—

Let us hear from the Lib Dem Benches first—then we will hear from the noble Lord.

My Lords, high energy efficiency in new homes is clearly vital, but so is improving the home energy efficiency of existing homes, particularly the 2.6 million substandard homes in the privately rented sector. While the promised consultation is welcome, what plans do the Government have to speed up the retrofit programme to meet the target for 2030? In particular, what plans do they have to improve the situation whereby we have very few people currently available to do the necessary work?

There were two clear points there. One is about the training, apprenticeships and skills that we need to deliver in order to meet the retrofitting programme. We are working with colleagues in the Department for Education on that. We know there is a big challenge across the construction sector, first, to deliver 1.5 million new homes but also, secondly, in the retrofitting area. We are determined to meet that challenge and offer the new jobs that I spoke about earlier. The noble Lord spoke about the private rented sector. Next week we will be introducing the renters’ rights Bill. There are significant new powers in that Bill for tenants to challenge their landlords when they feel that the improvements their homes need are not being dealt with as quickly as they should be. We continue to monitor that situation, because it is important that people can have homes that are fit for purpose and are warm, decent and comfortable.

My Lords, when we finally get the new homes standard, will the Minister ensure that it comes into operation immediately and does not take about five years to roll out, as the previous ones have? Will she also take up with the companies which build houses that, since 2017, they have built 1.5 million houses that are not fit for the future, taken the profits and left the people who have bought those houses to meet the costs of retrofitting? Is it not a scandal? Should there not be a fund which they give to that can repay the people who have bought these houses, so that they can do what needs to be done to them?

The noble Lord makes some very important points. I have a lot of sympathy with what he says about how we take this forward. I think I was very clear in what I said: the intention of our Government is to make sure that there will be no further retrofitting needed when new homes are built. They will be built to the standard we set as soon as that standard comes into being. The discussions I have had with the construction industry lead me to believe that it is waiting for that standard and will be ready for it as soon as we are able to set it. I hope that will be the case. I will take the other ideas the noble Lord put forward back to my department.

My Lords, it was my understanding that this Government had said that rented properties must achieve at least an EPC rating of C by 2030, but I thank the Minister for correcting me on this. However, many listed properties cannot achieve this without substantial investment, which many private landlords simply cannot afford. This will only push more landlords to sell up, further restricting an already strained rental market. What assessment have His Majesty’s Government made on the impact of these new requirements and the impact they will have on the number of rental properties available?

Just to clarify, we are in consultation at the moment on the new EPC framework, which will require all properties to have an EPC registration of C. I will report to the House later on that issue. In relation to historic buildings, I have met the Historic Houses association and visited at least one historic property to try to discover for myself what the real issues are. There is further work to be done on that, but I am aware of all the issues related to the retrofitting of historic properties.