Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Gentleman should realise that the call for evidence is focused on how local communities benefit. It is not about reforming the planning system, which is obviously the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, although the overall thrust of our policies in this coalition Government is to empower local communities, because we have a strong localist agenda.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

11. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)]

The green deal, which went live on Monday 28 January, will help to transform the homes of British consumers over the coming decade and beyond. This transformational policy, alongside the ECO and smart meter roll-out, will drive the development of a new energy efficiency market, providing unprecedented choice, benefits and access to low-cost finance for British consumers.

[Nick Smith]

Cold weather payments were triggered recently, as deep snow covered Blaenau Gwent, yet in recent months 181 insulation workers have been made redundant in Wales. Instead of the hyperbole, has not the Government’s introduction of the green deal and ECO sadly been woeful?

[Gregory Barker]

Once again, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will see that the insulation industry has a huge opportunity to move beyond just installing measures such as loft insulation to whole-house retrofits. Of course the industry is in a period of transition, but unless we take this bold step and create a much larger market, we will never tackle fuel poverty and turn around the juggernaut of increasing fuel poverty figures that we inherited from the last Government.