Homes: Environmental Standards

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The heat and buildings strategy is our long-term retrofit plan. Within that, we announced a number of forthcoming consultations; previous questions have referred to the consultation on the private rented sector. The noble Baroness referenced the visit I made to Leeds last week to look at the local authority installed measures that are going so well. We continue to invest large sums of money in these projects.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

The Government propose that private landlords will be required to pay up to £10,000 to ensure that the properties they rent out have an energy performance rating of C or better. Given that NRLA data suggests that the net annual rental income for landlords is under £4,400 a year, what financial support will be available for private landlords to make the energy improvements required of them?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

There are a number of financial packages that private landlords letting to low-income tenants can take advantage of; I referred to some of the schemes earlier. Private sector landlords are entitled to take advantage of them, but the noble Lord is right and points to one of the dilemmas in the private rented sector, which is that the investment is made by landlords but the benefit is gained by tenants through lower fuel bills.