Net-Zero Carbon Emissions

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I start by reminding noble Lords that I am the honorary president of the National Home Improvement Council and an honorary fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

I intend in my contribution to highlight the urgent need for the Government to set out a coherent plan to make our built environment zero carbon by 2050. Debates about reducing carbon emissions often focus on fuel substitution—let us stop burning coal to generate electricity, for instance. When the debate moves on to talk about the necessary infrastructure to deliver those things, the discussion tends to focus on how to get more vehicle charging points, what technology to use for charging for road use, building more cycleways and putting in showers and bike stores at workplaces. That is all good stuff, but one basic fact about climate change policy is often overlooked: that noble Lords’ houses emit more carbon dioxide each year than noble Lords’ cars.

The built environment as it exists now is responsible for at least 30% of the United Kingdom’s emissions each year, twice as much as the whole transport sector, road, rail and air combined. Every year we are building more homes that actually make it worse. Each new school, hospital, factory and office block makes it worse, making reaching the target of zero carbon by 2050 harder, not easier. Noble Lords might expect, in a rational world of evidence-led policy making, that here in your Lordships’ House, and along the road in Whitehall, we would see carbon reduction of the built environment getting twice as much attention as all that expended on the transport sector, with twice as much spent on research and twice as much invested in cutting emissions. Noble Lords would expect a laser-like focus on delivery on that by any Government aiming to meet their statutory zero-carbon deadline by 2050, let alone trying to meet an 80% reduction by 2035. In fact that is not what is happening, despite Ministers setting out to turn the UK into the pre-eminent soft power of the world, sailing on an independent course as global Britain.

This November the Government will host the one international forum where they might be able to demonstrate genuine world leadership, COP 26. Surely the Minister can see the value of demonstrating at that conference that they have a credible plan to decarbonise the built environment. All the participants at that conference will be looking to the UK to see what world leadership on climate change really means. They will surely see through an empty promise for 2038 that is not backed by a credible delivery strategy for carbon reductions from existing buildings, especially homes.

Let me chart a course for the Minister to follow on that perilous journey to super soft power status at COP 26. First, he should stop building stuff badly. Back in 2015, the incoming Conservatives scrapped the plan for all new homes to be zero carbon. Since then 800,000 homes have been deliberately built to a lower standard, which means they all face the need for upgrading before 2050. That was an environmental scandal, and it remains a continuing wasted opportunity. Today the Minister should announce that all new homes started on site from April 2022 must be zero carbon. Let us stop building stuff badly. That surely is a policy no-brainer. And, yes, of course, he should also require all new publicly funded buildings of every type to be zero carbon from the same date, with a firm timetable for the private sector to be zero carbon too.

But all that zero-carbon new build will still be only a small fraction of the built environment when we get to 2050. There are 24 million homes now and it is likely that 20 million of them will still be standing in 2050. They all have to be massively upgraded if there is to be any chance of reaching zero carbon by then. In that context, the announcement of the green homes grant last year sounded very promising: a 600,000 home programme to be completed by this March. If we kept going at that rate, 33 years later all homes would be upgraded—a three-year overshoot on 2050, but a promising start. However, as of this week the Government have set themselves the new target of an 80% reduction by 2035. I say to the Minister that even had the green homes grant delivered 600,000 home upgrades a year as originally planned, the scheme would have reached only 8.4 million homes by 2035, with only 40% of existing homes upgraded, not the 80% targeted.

But, as your Lordships know, sounding promising was as good as it ever got with the green homes grant. I hope the Minister will not use any of his time to tell your Lordships how nearly successful it was. The fact is that it did not deliver any extra jobs—the key reason given at the time of the scheme’s launch; it delivered less than 10% of the planned improvements to homes; it completely disillusioned the home improvement industry; it deeply frustrated a large pool of willing home owners who have been turned away from making improvements; and it enriched an incompetent IT company in Virginia, USA. Now, finally, it has been cancelled. The very small slice of the unspent money rolled over into this year has now been slashed as well, with an announcement this week—the first sign, perhaps, of ministerial understanding of real life—of £300 million being redirected instead to local housing providers for use in upgrading homes in the low-income housing sector.

The green homes grant was not world beating, nor will it be a soft power enhancer at COP 26. In fact, it was a perfect working example of what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, referred to as silo policy-making by people who took no advice from anyone.

Therefore, the second step for the Minister to announce today is a completely fresh start to upgrading all of England’s homes in a steady multiyear programme. It will need innovation and investment in capacity building. It will need to be driven by regulatory changes and supported by serious workforce planning, with recruitment and retraining in the skills needed. Essential to all that is a shelf life not of the laughable 26 weeks offered by the green homes grant but more like 26 years. It will need to work and build with trusted partners. The one undoubtedly successful outcome from the green homes grant was the demonstration that local authorities, given their head, can deliver in this area, as they have done with the low-income owners scheme.

To get 80% of our homes upgraded by 2035, an average of 1 million homes a year will need work done. That is not as daunting as it may sound: nearly twice that number of central heating boilers are replaced each year without any drama at all. That is done because there are skilled installers in place all over the country, a marketplace that functions well, and a regulatory system that underpins safe and efficient schemes. But to deliver that for home energy upgrades will take a serious level of long-term commitment by this Government to lay sound foundations for establishing a capable delivery programme.

The Government will need to work very closely with the construction industry on to deliver the work. The great majority of those 1.6 million central heating boilers installed each year are put in by small and micro-businesses, not by mega construction firms. In the future, home energy upgrades will be done best when they are delivered through small companies and businesses. With those things in place, success can certainly follow.

In summary, the Government need to stop making it worse with new build and make zero-carbon infrastructure the new normal; to tackle the backlog of energy wastage and carbon emissions in our existing building stock; and to plan ahead and plan long term. They need to learn from the green homes grant experience that a press release is not a policy nor a delivery plan—and that Rome was not built in 26 weeks. The Government need to work with trusted partners in local government, empowering them to supervise and deliver, and give confidence to the construction industry that it is safe and indeed profitable for it to invest in the skills and capacity building needed.

My question to the Minister is: does he take to heart the urgent need to cut carbon in construction and to upgrade the country’s 24 million homes? If so, what is the plan, when will it start, who will deliver it and what are the milestones on the journey? Does he not, at the least, accept that answers to those questions that are provided before COP 26 starts will have a double value in giving leadership at that conference on the urgently needed international framework of climate change mitigation?

My noble friend Lord Teverson has set the Minister the exam question today. I have done my best to prep the Minister on what he might best say in response, at least in regard to the 30% of our carbon output that comes from buildings. I am looking forward with great interest to hearing from the Minister later whether or not my coaching has borne fruit.