PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Household Energy Efficiency - 29 April 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

In 2025-26 alone we will upgrade up to 300,000 homes through the warm homes plan and other measures. That is more than double the number of homes upgraded last year. Later this year we will set out more detail of our warm homes plan to upgrade up to 5 million homes with energy-efficient technologies such as heat pumps, solar and insulation in order to deliver warmer homes and lower bills.

I recognise that there are very good schemes for those on lower incomes and that heating homes is really important. For many older properties and properties in conservation areas, as fast as we heat the homes, the heat just goes out the windows. In my area, where there are lots of older homes and homes in conservation areas, it is near impossible to get permission to apply double or triple glazing. Can the Secretary of State sort out this tension between having warm homes and older homes, particularly when he is trying so hard to ensure that homes meet the C grade rating for energy performance certificates by 2030? This needs to be sorted out with planning departments.

The hon. Lady raises a really important point. I am constantly on the look-out for small measures and large in the planning system that can obstruct the sensible energy efficiency measures, such as solar panels, that will make all the difference. I say to her and other Members of the House that if they have specific examples of barriers or interpretations of guidelines that are getting in the way—sometimes is not about the rules but about local councils’ interpretations of them—please bring them to our attention, because we are constantly trying to make it easier to make such upgrades happen.

Earl, a social housing tenant from Glastonbury, is disabled and has faced multiple barriers that have prevented him from self-funding improvements to the sustainability and energy efficiency of his home, in order to help him reduce his energy poverty and improve his health. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that social housing tenants receive energy upgrades in their homes, and in particular those living in older housing stock, where upgrades might be more complex to achieve?

It sounds as though the hon. Lady is raising an individual case, and if she wants to draw it to our attention, she can do so. On the more general point, I believe that her local authority has received £6 million as part of the warm homes local grant, so it would be worth talking to it about this. Again—I am sure that I speak for the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh), on this—where there are specific issues about how particular schemes are working, please do draw them to our attention and we will seek to act on them.

Royal Shrewsbury hospital in my constituency was delighted to receive a £450,000 investment for solar panels, which will see our local trust save more than £1 million by reducing its energy bills in the lifetime of the project. Will the Secretary of State join me in celebrating this excellent start to our nationalised Great British Energy company and update the House on the next steps to get us towards that mission?

I do join my hon. Friend in that. I say to all Opposition Members who voted against GB Energy that many of them will now be getting solar panels on schools and hospitals in their constituencies. Let all their constituents know that those are local MPs who opposed cutting bills for schools and hospitals in their own constituencies.

My hon. Friend raises a really important point about the crucial role of local authorities in relation to these issues. One of the things that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has done is devolve more funding to combined authorities on this. We want to go further, including in relation to local authorities, because it is local authorities—including my hon. Friend’s, which I congratulate—who know best the particular needs of their own localities, and they are a key part of the answer to the energy efficiency upgrade that we need.