Home Energy Efficiency: North of England

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Peter Gibson]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. If she is referring to homes in her constituency, I can well understand and imagine that they have the same issues as homes in the north of England. My objective in calling this debate was to have a constructive and non-partisan debate in order to raise the important issues that are relevant to my constituents and to concentrate on what the Government can do on top of what they are already doing. I am sure my right hon. Friend the Minister will do in his summing-up.

Energy efficiency also presents an opportunity to improve health outcomes in the north. Each winter, there are around 30,000 more deaths due to inadequate heating in homes. Retrofitting homes has the potential to seriously improve the health outcomes of those who currently live in poor housing. Health and wellbeing rightly have a prominent place in our levelling-up missions, and I want to impress on the Minister the real need to look closely at the benefits of retrofitting northern homes for that purpose. It is not cheap, but we all know that if you buy cheap, you buy twice.

Now, Darlington is a beautiful town, rich in heritage and filled with many traditional homes. We are, of course, the birthplace of the railways, and it is indeed the railway heritage and engineering industry that caused the expansion of our town. In Darlington, 65% of energy performance certificate ratings given to our homes are band D or below. That piles the extra cost of wasted energy on to the residents of those homes—at current energy prices. Merely upgrading homes from EPC band D to band C would cut heating demand by 20% for millions of households and would represent an estimated £2.9 billion bill saving per year in the north-east region.

However, with 62% of homes—around 4 million—in the north below EPC band C, that is a huge challenge. Currently, many stakeholders feel it is simply not financially viable to achieve. I want the Minister to know that I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge. The complexities of private ownership, private renting, and social housing in the mix make it a difficult puzzle to solve.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

In the spirit in which the hon. Member framed his earlier comments, I agree with everything he has said so far. He is right both to highlight the significance of domestic carbon emissions and to link it to fuel poverty. He may be interested to know that, in Sheffield, pretty much in line with the figures he has given, 60% of homes fail the EPC band C standard. The figure across Yorkshire and the Humber as a whole is worse, at 65%.

The hon. Member talked about a win-win. Does he agree that it would be a win-win-win-win-win if we did more on retro-insulation, because it cuts carbon emissions and fuel bills, tackles health issues, reduces our reliance on gas imports and creates jobs? Does he therefore share my desire for the Government to have greater ambition on retro-insulation?