Retrofitting Buildings: National Strategy

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

That follows on from my answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, about how we are trying to improve supply chain capacity and upskill the workforce. We learned these lessons from the failure of the green homes grant scheme—there simply were not enough qualified technicians to install under the necessary upgrade schemes. The boiler upgrade scheme was specifically designed so that installers would be able to invest in their workforce to increase the capacity for the market to make those sorts of changes.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I press the Minister on the response that she gave to the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone. I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation. Housing associations face real challenges, in terms of both strategic funding and, in particular, green jobs and skills. I press the Minister on the timing: what progress has been made by the green skills taskforce in producing an action plan, and when does she expect it to be published?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am afraid I do not have in my brief the exact timing for when we will publish the results of that, but I will perhaps write to the noble Baroness with a response and put a copy in the Library for everyone else.