Oral Answers to Questions

Eddie Hughes Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

8. What steps he is taking to ensure all homes meet high climate standards.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Eddie Hughes)]

I welcome the hon. Members’ attention to this important issue. Homes are among our biggest sources of emissions, and we are committed to reducing the carbon they generate. The recently published heat and buildings strategy sets out the steps required to improve the energy performance of our homes, and through the future homes standard, from 2025 we will deliver a 75% reduction in CO₂ emissions compared with homes built to the current standard. However, we are not waiting until 2025 to take action: as a carbon-saving step along the way, we will introduce an interim uplift to the current standard before the end of this year—and there is not a lot of time left, as you will have spotted, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

What are you trying to tell me?

[Rachel Hopkins]

The cost of living crisis is hitting families in Luton South and across the UK hard, and it is set to get worse this winter. With rising energy bills, taxes and food costs, we have never needed a retrofit programme more than now, but the Government’s heat and buildings strategy is inadequate and unambitious. In advance of Fuel Poverty Awareness Day on Friday, will the Minister commit to Labour’s 10-year plan to invest £6 billion a year in home insulation and zero-carbon heating, which will improve our energy security, create jobs and reduce carbon emissions, while also helping to cut bills by £400 a year?

[Eddie Hughes]

Mr Speaker, I do not know about you, but I spent the weekend reading “My climate action plan: Becoming a carbon neutral borough by 2040”, by the hon. Lady’s local council, and I understand the effort the local council is putting into ensuring that all homes are going to be net zero. Obviously, the Government are committed to that. I am disappointed to hear her say we are unambitious given that we have committed £3.9 billion to the social housing decarbonisation fund and a further £450 million to the boiler upgrade scheme to ensure that people can claim £5,000 per property to replace their boilers with carbon-efficient alternatives.

[Kate Osborne]

There is a significant funding gap to meet the housing investment requirements of the Government’s energy performance targets. I am informed that housing organisations will be expected to fund the majority of this investment over a 10-year period. In my constituency of Jarrow and across the UK, local authorities have had more than half their funding cut over the last 10 years. How are local authorities expected to meet this required investment despite the obvious financial challenges that they are currently facing?

[Eddie Hughes]

I would say that many local authorities are already making considerable progress along these lines. I am delighted to see that the hon. Lady’s local council has joined the ambitious UK100 network—a network of councils committed to achieving net zero as soon as possible—and I understand that it has committed to being carbon neutral by 2030, so it feels to me as though councils are getting the funding that they need.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

There is very clear evidence that people who commission their own houses do so to much higher environmental standards, thus doing their own bit to protect against climate change. What plans do Ministers have to make it easier for ordinary people on normal incomes to get a serviced plot of land so that they can commission their own, much greener houses?

[Eddie Hughes]

My hon. Friend is a frequent champion of his cause in this Chamber, and I think the simple answer to his question is the funding that we are providing through the help to build scheme, but I look forward to further conversations with him in the future to see what else we can do to assist him.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

Stroud residents are pleased and relieved about the potential reforms in place to build new net-zero homes and protect rural areas from overdevelopment, but we have a local plan going through now and there is a lot of unrest about the consultation process, net-zero homes not being built and mass development in places such as Sharpness. Will my hon. Friend meet me to discuss the areas where local plans are going through now to see how we may benefit from some of the fantastic work going on for the future?

[Eddie Hughes]

My hon. Friend is a doughty champion off all issues environmental and net zero. I am not sure I am the correct Minister to meet her, but if I am, I will, and if I am not, I will ask my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing to do so instead.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

With energy costs rising exponentially and the Government having scrapped Labour’s zero carbon homes policy months before it was due to come in, abandoned the green homes grant and delayed the future homes standard, is it not the case that families and taxpayers pay the cost for the Government’s failures to make our homes more sustainable? This is an obvious case of false economy, with all of us paying more in the long run for higher bills and future retrofitting costs. The Minister has already been asked this question, but will he answer it this time: will he adopt Labour’s plans for a national mission to retrofit every home that needs it and bring forward all aspects of the future homes standard without delay?

[Eddie Hughes]

The simple answer is that this Government already have a pretty good plan, so we do not need to look to others and adopt their plans instead. It is unfortunate that the hon. Lady wrote her questions in advance of my previous answers, in which I mentioned, for instance, the £450 million that we have committed to the boiler upgrade. So there is significant investment in this area, we have a strong and sound plan, and progress is moving at pace.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

Has my hon. Friend examined the advantages of ground and air heat pumps? I know it is difficult in smaller buildings to have ground pumps because of the large infrastructure required, but air pumps are a little more possible, so what encouragement can the Government give to retrofit such pumps to existing homes?

[Eddie Hughes]

In the summer I was fortunate to visit the Grey Mare Lane estate in Beswick and see the work going on through the social housing decarbonisation fund demonstrator. Heat pumps are being fitted, and we will have the opportunity very soon to see how people benefit from the experience of having those measures introduced.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

3. What recent estimate he has made of the number of children in temporary accommodation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Eddie Hughes)]

It is certainly not ideal, but time spent in temporary accommodation does that mean people are getting help and ensures families have a roof over their heads. We are committed to reducing the need for temporary accommodation by preventing homelessness before it occurs, which is why we are investing £375 million this year to support local authorities to prevent homelessness, an increase of £112 million on the sum last year. However, on 30 June this year 124,290 dependent children were living in temporary accommodation, although that is down 2.3% on the same quarter last year.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Some 124,190 children will spend this Christmas in temporary accommodation, without a place to call home. They will wake up in hostels, bed and breakfasts and working industrial estates, often far away from their schools and friends. Homeless families in the UK are moved the equivalent of 400,000 miles around the globe each year, at a staggering cost of over £1 billion. Given that there have been over 100,000 children in temporary accommodation since 2015, what hope can the Minister give this House, and more importantly those children, that they will at some point have a place to call home?

[Eddie Hughes]

I completely sympathise with the cause trumpeted by the hon. Lady and would say two things. First, some councils are doing innovative work in this area: I understand Barnet Council is working with Opendoor Homes to purchase properties itself to use for temporary accommodation, as in that way it can at least control the quality and associated cost. But my personal preference is the work we are doing through Capital Letters, which has been very successful so far in helping London boroughs secure properties for use for temporary accommodation.

[Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to help ensure that local communities are consulted effectively in the planning process for new housing developments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

12. What support his Department is providing to reduce homelessness in London.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Eddie Hughes)]

This year, councils will receive £375 million to prevent homelessness, with almost 50% of that funding going to London councils. The funding is part of an overall investment in England of more than £800 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping this year.

[Catherine West]

Will the Government consider a specific fund for the relatively small number of families with children who have a terminal illness? I have several cases where there are specific requirements around enlarged doorways and an extra bedroom so that nurses and doctors can get around the bed and the child can have care at home. Will the Minister look at specific funding for certain London councils to provide that sort of special housing need?

[Eddie Hughes]

I think it would be easier for me to agree to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the specific details of the case that she is talking about.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

13. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of provisions in the Planning (Street Plans) Bill to allow residents to vote on the design of new homes in their streets on levels of housing supply.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

T3. The Everyone In policy was very successful in taking rough sleepers off the streets at the beginning of the pandemic, but it was abandoned too quickly and last winter thousands of people were back on the streets. With winter storms, bitter weather and worry about a new covid variant, why are the Government not giving priority to restoring a version of Everyone In now?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Eddie Hughes)]

I am disappointed by the hon. Lady’s suggestion that it has been abandoned. It certainly has not. The Government are committed to giving all people somewhere safe to sleep. We have the £10 million winter pressure fund and we have the winter transformation fund to help charities and faith groups to deliver single-unit accommodation, so this Government are very much committed to the cause and I would welcome working with the hon. Lady on this in the future.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

T7.   As the Secretary of State will be aware, I am working with peers, other Members of this place and charities to secure the repeal of the Vagrancy Act 1824, which criminalises rough sleepers rather than helping them. My constituency is home to the largest number of rough sleepers in the country. The former Secretary of State said in the House in February in answer to a question of mine that he thought that the Act should be “consigned to history”. What does the current Secretary of State think of the Vagrancy Act?