Warm Homes Plan

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Whitehead

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

There is a large number of applications of anonymised and aggregated data from smart meters, assuming that you have enough smart meters installed in any one place to make the data meaningful. We still have some problems with that and the smart meter rollout but, in general, it can be used for a variety of applications. For example, the warm homes programme is looking to develop area-based applications wherever possible: having the data on where people in fuel poverty are and what areas have a concentration of such people gives you a very good chance of making sure that you can relate the investment that you are putting in with actually making a difference on fuel poverty. Previously, one of the problems with schemes was that we just did not know where those people were. Quite often, the schemes operated a scattergun approach that did not really hit the target as they should have done.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement from the bottom of my heart because, for a long time, I have been very uneasy that we have approaching 1.6 million children living in conditions that can only be described as Dickensian. It simply should not happen in a modern UK. We are uniquely exposed to the volatile gas price and we have the least energy-efficient houses in Europe. It is a litany of failure and I think that this plan goes some way to turning that around, at long last.

It tackles three very important issues as far as I am concerned. I want to explore one in particular with the Minister. It tackles the cost of living issue, which is going to be even more important in view of the volatility of the global political situation. It tackles the health impacts on poor families and of poor building standards, and it creates UK jobs. But when the Environment and Climate Change Committee took a look at some of the issues to do with consumer behaviour and change to new systems, the lesson that came out loud and clear from all the witnesses we saw was that they wanted help to make it easier and cheaper to switch from inadequate, polluting and ineffective standards to modern technologies. The role of the warm homes agency is very welcome and is really important. Can the Minister tell us a bit more about how that agency will be tasked with ensuring that the schemes that are in place do not fail and that the sort of consumer confidence to make the change that is going to be really fundamental to this is going to be promoted?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

My noble friend is right to focus attention on the extent to which consumers and the general public will have confidence in the changes that are afoot and will be able to make decisions as to how they participate in those changes in the best way possible. I think that is one area where, as a country, we have been quite lacking in the past—although I exempt from this the nation of Scotland, which for quite a while has had a national advice agency in place, giving impartial advice and assistance and seeing that through to installation.

One of the functions of the warm homes agency will be to provide unbiased, informed advice and assistance to ensure that what is being proposed for individuals’ homes—and after all, they are the things that are most important in their lives and the things they are most concerned to get right—are done with a high degree of transparency, reliability and effectiveness. I hope that will be an early development of the warm homes agency as it comes into place. In the context of what we have seen just recently with the problems that ECO4 has had and the Public Accounts Committee report on it, we really do have to have that advice in place, and also that regulation to make sure that the standards that we think we are delivering to people really can be applied properly.

Offshore Wind

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Whitehead

Monday 19th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I am afraid the noble Lord will have to wait for about a week before the warm homes plan comes out. That will contain, so I am reliably informed, a great deal of detail about precisely the areas of heat, efficient low-carbon homes, heat pumps—all the sorts of things that are the other side of the energy revolution. We hope they will begin to be combined together into coherent programmes, working with each other to ensure that, among other things, that greatest piece of low-carbon energy—the energy you do not use—is properly incorporated into overall programmes.

I assure the noble Lord that this is uppermost in our minds. We are aiming, as we always have, to develop a comprehensive palette of policies that will deal with all aspects of low-carbon energy, energy security and energy efficiency. Indeed, the noble Lord will note that the AR7 announcement is not complete, inasmuch as there are further pots to be reported on, including solar, tidal, geothermal and various other things, in the next week or so. So I hope we will come back to this Chamber and compare and contrast notes on the picture that we will have when those two things have actually happened. I think the noble Lord will be pretty pleased with what will result from it.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I commend the Minister on this Statement and welcome it very much. It is a welcome return from the terrible days when you put out an auction and nobody played the game. It really was quite heartbreaking when we had those dreadful doldrum days.

I shall focus on something that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, raised, which is the increased demand for energy, particularly that caused by data and AI centres. The one thing we must not allow to happen is that we accept that that is a given. We have been fairly effective in keeping the whole concept of energy efficiency alive, and the warm homes standard is going to be a good example of that. The question about the predictions of the energy demand of AI needs to be approached in a different way that says we cannot simply see demand increase but must adopt measures that mean that some of these centres are using not only the most up-to-date modern technologies but are encouraging future technologies in order to reduce their impact on the environment, by not only energy use but water use. I would love to say that photonics is the answer if I only knew what photonics is, but technologies are being talked about that will impact on AI demand. I would appreciate a comforting voice from the Minister that at this very new point in seeing a further increase in demand, we will not lose sight of trying to examine seriously possible technologies.

Drax

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Whitehead

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will know that Drax is the largest single power producer in the UK and is responsible for about 5% of UK power. That means that it uses an enormous amount of biomass in its process, having converted from coal some while ago. The question, then, is where Drax gets its biomass from, bearing in mind that the amount of biomass that is being grown in this country falls far short of the desideratum in terms of sourcing—particularly in view of the length of time that it has taken to grow that biomass. Therefore, sourcing from abroad appears to make some sense, though not necessarily for the long-term future.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister’s own department is consulting on sustainability criteria for biomass as we speak, which will inform future subsidy eligibility and reporting requirements for the rest of the market. In addition, the Financial Conduct Authority is still investigating Drax’s biomass sourcing statements. What safeguards have been built into the new Drax contract that covers 2027-31? Will the results of these two inquiries produce changes to the terms of the recently signed Drax contract?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I cannot assure the noble Baroness that terms will be changed during the new contract. However, the LCCC will be responsible for making sure that the 100% sustainability criteria that have been entered into in the new contract will be strictly observed. That is a substantial step forward from the previous oversight arrangements.