Winter Heating Initiatives

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I will certainly pass my noble friend’s thoughts on to whoever occupies those great offices in the Treasury in the next few weeks. Regarding his first point, we want to ensure that any reductions in international energy prices are passed on to consumers as quickly as possible.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that fuel-poor households will seriously suffer not just during the coming winter but, given the way that the energy market is going, in subsequent winters? Do the Government accept that, in order to deal with the problem of fuel poverty, they need to knock the heads of the energy companies together and introduce proper, targeted social tariffs, and to reintroduce a comprehensive insulation programme that does not depend solely on the rather haphazard procedures under the ECO scheme? That needs to be done as a matter of urgency, in line with the rest of the energy strategy.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am sorry that the noble Lord is so down on the ECO scheme. It is a good programme and, as he is probably aware, we are expanding it to £1 billion a year. It is not the only energy-efficiency scheme we have: there is the home upgrade grant, the local authority delivery scheme and the social housing decarbonisation fund, which is about to launch bids for another £800 million of grants to local authorities and housing associations.