Retrofitting Buildings: National Strategy

Baroness Blake of Leeds Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, buildings are responsible for about 30% of primary energy use in the UK and nearly half of all carbon emissions. As we have heard, the Government’s failures with the green homes grant and the absence of efficiency measures in the energy security strategy, including the crucial issue of retrofitting, suggest that they have little idea of how to tackle this significant issue. Can the Minister tell us what measures we will see in the upcoming energy security Bill to show that lessons have finally been learned?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I do not think that anyone could disagree that we learned a number of lessons from the failure of the green homes grant—but we need to understand that its primary objective was to upskill the workforce and support jobs after the pandemic, as well as to drive forward the net-zero agenda for this Government. We learned that a limited number of installers were registered, although we did install 47,000 upgrades. We also learned that the 12-week timescale was insufficient to produce a meaningful scheme, and we did not do enough consultation before introducing such a complex scheme. But those issues have been addressed, and the whole heat and buildings strategy needs to be seen in the round—it sets out the long-term objective, and the upcoming energy security Bill is just a part of that overall objective.