Net Zero Strategy and Heat and Buildings Strategy

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

Mr Speaker, as a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, you can imagine that I take a strong and ongoing interest in exactly that sort of question. We at BEIS have those discussions with the Treasury and the whole of Government all of the time to make sure that the plan here is both achievable and affordable and that it will be realised to enable us to meet all of those targets that we have set ourselves. I am looking forward to interacting with my hon. Friend on any specific concerns that he may have going forward, but his question and his points are the sorts of things that are very much on our minds.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Obviously, £450 million for heat pumps across England and Wales is a good thing, but it is set to benefit only 0.3% of Welsh households, while the future generations commissioner calculates that the cost of decarbonising Wales’s housing stock stands at £14.75 billion. The Treasury has resisted every step on the road to COP26. Our economy, our environment and our communities need Treasury funding to step up to the mark to lead the transformational investment. That will give the private sector confidence. How confident is the Minister that this news will reach us within the next 10 days?

[Greg Hands]

A very substantial amount of Government money is going into the heat and building strategy—I think it is in the region of £4 billion. I will correct the right hon. Lady. On this heat pump scheme that we have introduced, the idea is that it kickstarts the market and gets the private sector providing solutions. We have already seen a really good response to our signals from the private sector. That is exactly right, because the solutions to issues such as home heating will lie principally with the private sector.