Warm Homes Plan

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. It might be helpful if I go into a brief disquisition on perovskite and its qualities, to inform the House about the noble Lord’s question.

Perovskite is, quite simply, a wonder product in terms of solar development. It is a mineral, but largely made synthetically, and manages to trap a wider spectrum of the sun’s rays than traditional silica does. So-called tandem panels which have a silica panel underneath and a perovskite film on top have an increased efficiency of 20% to 30%—which is a fantastic addition. With solar on a field basis, far more power can be got out of a smaller series of solar arrays. As far as home solar is concerned, an enormous boost can be achieved—perhaps half the power used can be got from the roof, with the same amount of solar panels than would have been put on previously. It is a very exciting development.

Oxford PV is the company spin-out from Oxford University, which is engaging in the development and commercialisation of those tandem panels. There is also a pilot production line under way in Germany.

The Government have been very supportive of Oxford PV in its journey. There was an original grant for Oxford PV of, I think, £668,000 in 2014 and there have been grants from UKRI subsequently. Oxford PV is presently in some discussions with the Department for Business and Trade, as this is something that we very much look forward to developing for the great advantage of the solar world generally. I assure the noble Lord that the Government are active in this pursuit, with the prizes that it can bring.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his very extensive Statement on the warm homes plan today. Does he agree that heat pumps are most effective when paired with insulation? Could he say a little more about what the Government will do to increase insulation in existing homes now that the ECO scheme is ending? If the future homes standard is going to be published and implemented, when will that take place? Bearing in mind all the floods that we have seen over the last number of weeks and days, what further climate change adaptation measures will be considered? Maybe the Minister would write to me on that final issue.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that contribution. The question of heat pumps and insulation is very clear: heat pumps do not work as well as they should if a property is poorly insulated, so increasing insulation hand in hand with heat pump installation is a very wise thing to do. However, among other things, the warm homes plan tries to take a measured view of where fabric improvements are perhaps necessary and needed, and where other forms of enhanced energy considerations could take their place. There are properties that are very difficult to insulate to the right standards but, with solar, batteries, heat pumps and such things, they can come up to the sort of standard you require. So this warm homes plan is a little more careful about the combination of various factors. Elements of the plan will involve fabric—probably about 700,000 homes will continue to get fabric uprating—but other factors will be coming into being.

I will be happy to write to the noble Baroness about the future homes plan and how that will work out. It is under way at the moment and will, among other things, ensure that new homes, when built, will be of a sufficient standard that they will not need fabric uprating for the future, because it will be in the definition of those new homes. That is going to be produced shortly and I will certainly inform the noble Baroness about its progress as soon as I can.