Homes: Environmental Standards

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dubs]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to provide guidance to homeowners and landlords to ensure that homes are improved to the highest possible environmental standards.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

The Government’s ambition is for as many homes as possible to reach EPC band C by 2035. Our Simple Energy Advice service provides tailored advice and guidance for home owners and landlords on how to improve the energy performance of their homes and has received over 1.7 million users to date. We are also looking to improve the tailoring of recommendations on energy performance certificates to individual properties.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a mammoth task to bring the many millions of homes in this country up to the standard suggested by the Minister. What are the Government going to do to ensure that we have enough trained workers, apprentices and others to do the work? Surely we need a massive training programme for the skilled workforce that is required to bring our homes up to standard.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord: we need exactly that. We are working both through the Department for Education, with some of its training investments, and with many of the private sector providers which are also introducing new schemes, apprenticeships and training even as we speak. I went up to visit some of them only a few weeks ago, and the way industry is coming to the fore with these advancements is very impressive.