Warm Home Discount

Debate between Claire Young and Miatta Fahnbulleh

Thursday 19th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)]

We welcome investment in warm homes following a winter in which millions of households were living in fuel poverty. The crisis was exacerbated by the Government’s cut to winter fuel payments— and we welcome the U-turn on that, too. The former Conservative Government’s stop-starts on home insulation policies left thousands of vulnerable people in damp, cold and unsafe homes, with lower energy-efficiency standards and higher bills during an energy crisis.

Given that homes in this country are among the oldest and least energy-efficient in Europe, will the Government commit to an ambitious 10-year plan for home insulation, for which the Liberal Democrats have long called? Will they ensure that households on lower incomes will be eligible for free insulation as part of that plan? And, following the Government accepting the campaign of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) for solar panels to be mandated for all new homes, will they now look to introduce a full zero carbon standard for all new homes and solar for car parks, as put forward by the Liberal Democrats in amendments to the Planning and Infra- structure Bill?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I could not agree more. The record of stops and starts on home upgrades and home insulation is one reason that we failed to insulate as many households as we should have done from the energy price spike. We are committed to a long-term plan to upgrade millions of homes across the country. That is what the warm homes plan will do. We are delighted that this has been backed by the Chancellor with £13.2 billion of investment, and we are now working on how we draw that out across the country. We will make sure that we have the right solution for every household, using a combination of insulation, solar, and heat pumps. We want every household that gets an upgrade to have a home that is warm and much, much cheaper to run. That is our absolute focus and priority.

On the future homes standard, we have been working very closely with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and consulting with developers. We are absolutely committed to driving forward standards. We have set out our ambition to make sure that future homes are fit for the future, using solar and clean heat solutions. We cannot have the situation that we have had in the past, where we built homes that needed retrofitting a few years later. We are committed to our ambition and we will be setting out more details in the warm homes plan.

Warm Home Discount

Debate between Claire Young and Miatta Fahnbulleh

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)]

Chopping and changing home upgrade schemes, as we saw under the previous Conservative Government, causes uncertainty and confusion, which is damaging for both consumers and installers alike. Will this Government avoid that mistake by setting out long-term plans for energy efficiency schemes that go beyond 2026?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

One hundred per cent. We need a long-term plan, so that every part of the system can respond to that. Our warm homes plan will try to set a long-term trajectory, so that we can marshal every part of the system necessary to deliver hundreds of thousands of upgrades, year in, year out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Claire Young and Miatta Fahnbulleh

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Miatta Fahnbulleh)]

Whether it is our ending of the onshore wind ban, the CCUS funding we announced last week, our plans for Great British Energy or our warm homes plan, we are hitting the ground running to deliver our clean power mission. The Conservatives spent 14 years dithering and delaying, leaving ordinary people to pay the price, but we will get on with the job of delivering energy security so that we can secure financial security for families, good jobs and climate action.

[Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)]

T6. To achieve net zero, we will need widespread micro-generation alongside large-scale projects. However, as a local farmer who wanted to install an anaerobic digester told me, grid connections are both costly and subject to long delays. What does the Secretary of State plan to do to address these issues, particularly in rural areas such as my Thornbury and Yate constituency?