Home Energy Efficiency: North of England

Peter Gibson Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

It feels somewhat hot in here to me. If hon. Members wish to remove their jackets, that is perfectly in order.

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered energy efficiency of homes in the north of England.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I am delighted to bring this debate to Westminster Hall. At the outset, I declare my interest as a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on housing and planning and of the all-party parliamentary group for housing market and housing delivery. I also place on the record my thanks to North Star Housing, the Conservative Environment Network, the Northern Housing Consortium and the National Housing Federation for their insightful and helpful engagement with me on this important issue in preparation for today’s debate.

Twenty-six per cent. of the north’s carbon emissions come from our homes—26%. If we are to tackle climate change and meet net zero, we have to do something about that 26%, in addition to all the other things that we are doing. Despite all the house building going on around the country, the UK’s housing stock is generally older than that across the rest of Europe. And in the north, we have a higher percentage of older properties than the rest of the country: 24% of all homes in the north were built before 1919, and 41% were built before 1944. These older homes are largely beautiful, characterful properties that provide us with the backdrop to much of our northern constituencies, but they pose serious issues when it comes to energy efficiency. Solid walls prevent the use of cavity insulation, and planning constraints require buildings to retain their character, making exterior work harder. That is alongside many other issues. Our Victorian terraces have proved particularly difficult to treat. However, we must find solutions to ensure that these homes are fit for the future. Future generations will thank us for our foresight in preserving these homes and doing our bit to save the planet.

The poor energy efficiency of homes in the north only serves to make our higher rates of fuel poverty even worse, compounding the problem. In my region, the north-east, we have the third highest levels of fuel poverty in England. Even before the price cap increased, 14% of households in Darlington and 15% in County Durham were classed as fuel-poor. Decarbonising homes and making them more energy efficient has the potential to offer part of the long-term solution to fuel poverty. Insulating homes better and reducing the reliance on fossil fuels to heat homes means less money spent on wasted energy, less money spent. It is a win-win for our homes, their residents and the environment.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I recognise the argument that the hon. Member is making about the north of England. I hope he will not mind my saying that my constituents in the north of London face similar problems and issues of fuel poverty. I am sure that all MPs here would say that emails on those issues are clogging our inbox. People up and down the country have been left uniquely exposed to the global gas crisis, because of the slashing of gas storage, the failure to regulate the market properly and the failure to invest in nuclear and renewables. Does the hon. Member think that we need a radically new approach to energy efficiency from the Government, and does he agree that they should seek to match Labour’s pledge to insulate 19 million homes over the next decade?

[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?

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[Peter Gibson]

It is as though the hon. Member has read a paragraph later in my speech. It would, indeed, be a win-win if we tackle this issue. Can we afford to not tackle the issue? Can we afford to not reap those health benefits, the energy cost savings, the wasted energy usage savings, and the preservation of our built environment?

I must acknowledge the work that the Government have done so far to tackle this issue. The heat and buildings strategy was published in October 2021, setting out the Government’s planned approach to reducing emissions from heating buildings. The social housing decarbonisation fund has awarded £179 million to 69 projects.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is articulating well the need for further measures to improve our housing stock. I am sure he will agree that now is an opportune moment to move ahead with this, given the pressure on household budgets. Blackpool received £1.4 million from the social housing decarbon-isation fund, and I am sure his constituency has benefited, too. Will he welcome those grants already given and support the need for further action to drive down those household bills?

[Peter Gibson]

Being familiar with my hon. Friend’s constituency, I well understand the situation and issues that his constituents face, as they are similar to those in my own. I was about to say that the Tees Valley Combined Authority has secured £2.6million from the social housing decarbonisation fund, from which homes in Darlington will benefit. I am grateful for that, and I welcome the contribution that my hon. Friend has secured for his constituency.

The local authority delivery scheme is also helping to improve energy efficiency: it is expected to save households across the country more than £2 million on energy bills every year. It is welcome that nearly 40% of the households that have been upgraded under the scheme are in the north. I also welcome the decision of the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), to cut VAT on home upgrades in the spring statement, encouraging people to invest in wall and loft insulation. I know that the Minister will agree that we must continue this good work, and I ask what the Government can do to roll out the schemes more widely.

Although progress is under way on decarbonisation and retrofitting, we still have a long way to go, but I want to focus on the need to tackle the huge cost currently associated with making our homes more energy efficient. We cannot achieve decarbonisation while it remains financially unviable for homeowners, private landlords and housing associations to pay for the work. We also need to ensure that we bring communities with us as we embark on this challenge. Recent research by Onward found that people think that the invasion of Ukraine means we should be moving more quickly on net zero, but retrofitting a home is intrusive work, and many people do not see it as a priority for them. We need to be clear what the benefit of this work is to our communities, and the connection between home heating and reaching net zero must be emphasised. How can the Government make it clear to communities how they stand to benefit from more energy efficient homes? That is a challenge that I hope the Minister can respond to.

As part of my preparation for the debate, I have been in contact with Angela Lockwood and Emma Speight at North Star Housing to discuss the difficulties faced by housing associations when it comes to decarbonisation and retrofitting their properties. In short, they are fully supportive of moves to decarbonise homes, but the costs involved are prohibitive. To illustrate this, they made me aware of a pilot decarbonisation project that they are carrying out on a two-bedroom, late-Victorian terraced house in Middlesbrough that they are aiming to get to EPC level A, so that they can then monitor the performance of the building.

I have the figures in front of me. North Star Housing calculates that the cost of decarbonisation work will be £45,500, with £12,000 going on solid wall insulation alone. While the work is being carried out, the property must sit empty for around 20 weeks, resulting in a void period and a loss of rental income. Given that other houses on the same street are valued at around £70,000, North Star Housing is looking at spending well over half of the value of a property in order to decarbonise it. It is simply not viable for housing associations to be spending that much to decarbonise their stock without targeted support and assistance.

Equally, private owners of those properties will face similar costs. However, although the up-front costs may be high, investing in the region’s homes now is, as the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) said, a win-win scenario for northern communities, because it will lead to warmer, healthier homes. Upgrading a home from EPC E to EPC C would reduce bills by an average of £595 a year, whereas upgrading from EPC F to EPC G would reduce bills by £1,339 a year. These are not short-term cuts to energy bills, but permanent reductions in household energy consumption, meaning that more of people’s money will be spent in our local economy.

The Government have seen that their retrofitting schemes can and do work. Data from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy shows that the total estimated annual bill saving for the 12,143 households upgraded in phase 1 of the local authority delivery scheme is £1.2 million. I therefore ask my right hon. Friend the Minister to outline what more the Government can do to ensure that we continue to deliver these schemes.

Retrofitting homes in the north will also play a huge part in delivering on our levelling-up agenda, with the north having the best chance to reap the economic benefits of our transition to a low-carbon economy compared with other regions of the UK. The large-scale retrofitting of homes in the north has the potential to deliver new skilled jobs in the green industries of the future—again, as the hon. Member for Sheffield Central said, a win-win.

The Northern Housing Consortium’s “Northern Powerhomes” report showed that a large-scale programme of social housing retrofitting could lead to the creation of 77,000 jobs in the north by 2035, 15,000 of which could be in the north-east. However, we have only around 1,200 qualified heat pump installers across the UK, so we clearly have a skills gap. I urge the Minister to do all he can to plug that skills gap and attract new entrants to the good green jobs that a focus on northern housing can deliver.

I also ask the Minister when the new energy company obligation scheme will begin. In the north, a high proportion of homes are fitted with insulation measures through ECO, and the support the scheme gives to low-income households is highly valuable. I understood that ECO4 was expected to begin in April. I would welcome any clarity the Minister can provide on the potential expansion of the scheme and when we might expect it.

We are now free of the bounds of Europe, and we can be bold, imaginative, creative and entrepreneurial. If we can lead the way in the north-east with carbon capture technology or hydrogen production, with vision our region can lead the way in innovating the retrofitting our old homes.

The north-east already has some innovative solutions. The Coal Authority in Gateshead is using mine water to generate heat for local homes and businesses. Will the Minister look closely at that project to see how it can be exploited at scale? Many gas boilers can already be made hydrogen-ready. As we transition away from fossil fuels, will the Minister look at what steps he can take to make every new boiler installed hydrogen-ready as soon as possible, rather than waiting for some date way off in the future?

Millions of homes across the country are just like those in the north, so the Government need both the carrot and the stick to drive this forward. We have no time to lose. I am proud of our built environment and want it to be preserved and protected for future generations, but I want my constituents’ homes to be warm and efficient too. There should not be a binary choice between two ambitions. There is a range of imaginative policy solutions and ideas to accelerate this process, including changes to stamp duty, incentives for home buyers to carry out these works at the beginning of their ownership, and creative financing through green mortgages, whereby the lender provides an initial sum on the original drawdown to fund the works, with the necessary conditions in place to ensure that the funds are not diverted elsewhere. We can even use the taxation system, through salary sacrifice. If it is good enough to fund car hire, the purchase of a bike or childcare, it should be good enough to provide improvements to our homes.

It is clear that improving the energy efficiency of homes in the north is a huge challenge. However, it can bring huge benefits to communities such as mine in Darlington. We can permanently bring down heating costs for millions of households, improve health outcomes for some of the most vulnerable in our society and level up communities that have been left behind by getting behind new, innovative green industries and delivering highly skilled jobs for our constituencies. I hope the Minister will give serious thought to all the points I have raised, and I look forward to hearing the rest of the contributions from across the Chamber.

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[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Robertson. I thank the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for giving us all the opportunity to be here to debate and ask questions of the Minister on this vital subject. Retrofitting homes, and ensuring that new homes are built to meet energy-efficient standards, is one of the most important things we can do to meet our net zero commitments by 2050. It was only in 2019 that Parliament declared a climate emergency. To reach net zero, we have to insulate Britain and if we do not, we will miss those targets by a mile.

The challenge we have before us is, of course, immense. The UK’s housing stock, as the hon. Member pointed out, is among the oldest in the world and the leakiest in western Europe. It is thanks to the Government’s inability to build the necessary number of houses of the right tenure and in the right places that things are going at a snail’s pace. There is considerable debate about the immediate challenges facing the Government around targets, but the consensus is around the 300,000 mark, which is highlighted in the Bill currently going through Parliament. As we speak, new homes are not, in the majority of cases, being built to the standard of energy efficiency we would expect. In fact, 1.5 million new homes have not met that standard over recent years. As hon. Members across the Chamber have rightly pointed out, that contributes to the dire situation on energy costs for every family in this country. There were reports in the media today—despite lots of other things we are focusing on, particularly the Government—that those bills are projected to rise to £3,000, so this is more important than ever. The failings on residential energy efficiency must be seen through the lens not only of the Government’s failure on climate policy, but of their failure to ensure that everyone in this country has a good, safe home.

Across the north, 19% of all homes are classed as non-decent and 12% fail to meet minimum standards, posing a category 1 health hazard to residents, which means potential death, permanent paralysis or serious injury. What kind of society lets 12% of its constituents live in those conditions? The energy efficiency of homes in much of the north is below the English average, which has been rightly pointed out as being shockingly low in itself. Across the country, nearly 60% of homes are not in the top three bands for energy efficiency. The north-west comes in just under the national average and the north-east just above, but Yorkshire is falling far behind and has the lowest proportion of any English region, with only one in three houses meeting efficiency standards.

Applying regional figures on energy certificates to the number of dwellings in the two local authorities covered by my constituency of Weaver Vale gives a rough idea of the scale of the challenge more locally. Some 35,000 homes in Halton alone need to be upgraded, alongside an incredible 96,000 in Cheshire West and Chester. As well as being a huge challenge, upgrading 19 million homes nationwide is an incredible opportunity. The economic case for making homes green is clear in the levelling-up White Paper, which has been referenced. In fact, the White Paper talks about an intervention in skills creating opportunities and 240,000 jobs by 2035 for the upgrading of homes. The hon. Member for Darlington referred to 77,000 jobs in the north. It is a strong case that has political consensus.

Can the Minister outline what the Government are doing to work with businesses, schools, universities, colleges and training providers to ensure that our localities have the skills that we need? I was at an event yesterday—just as other events were unfolding—at the Royal Society of Arts. Mayor Burnham was there, as well as Mayor Andy Street. Their asks of Government at the moment are to turbocharge devolution, particularly around the skills agenda, and ensure that the budget captured from Whitehall is put into the localities, whether that is Greater Manchester or the west midlands, to drive forward this agenda. Again, it is about common sense and political consensus.

Despite the hon. Member for Darlington referring to the non-partisan nature of the debate, we are of course politicians, and we do have different values and ideas, whether we are social democrats or conservatives. At times, political choices have consequences. Certainly in the past, the Conservative story of green homes has been one of short-term thinking and broken promises. To evidence that, back in 2013, the Conservative-led Government cut energy efficiency programmes. I will of course not let the Liberal Democrats off there, because, despite much denial, they were part of that Government at the time.

[Peter Gibson]

I beseech the hon. Gentleman to recognise that this is a failure of Governments of all colours over many decades to sufficiently and completely resolve this problem. It is a massive problem that every previous Government have failed to tackle. I welcome the steps the Government have taken, and I have urged the Minister to invest more. If we are going to be party political in this debate, I would love the hon. Gentleman to outline what his Government between 1997 and 2010 did to tackle this problem, because these constituencies that we are talking about were largely Labour-held constituencies at that time.

[Mike Amesbury]

The standards that were ditched would have come into play in 2015, which would have meant that hundreds of thousands of homes would be retrofitted and insulated and built to better standards. The new standards do not come into play until 2025—that is if the current Government exist over the next few months or even weeks.

There was also the green homes grant flagship scheme, which was scrapped just six months after its launch. There has been reference to the current social housing programme, which I welcome. Certainly, social housing providers in my constituency are trying to capture that investment, but again, it is insufficient, short term and bureaucratic. It could be better. That is feedback we will all get, regardless of our political persuasions.

I doff my cap slightly to the Welsh Labour Government, who have just announced £33 million in green funding for residential developers to help them deliver thermally efficient and lower-carbon homes, many of which will be available for social rent. The Government could do better on that—fewer than 6,000 homes for social rent were built last year. We need to be more ambitious.

Having spoken to developers, social housing organisations and councils, what they really need from the current or future Governments is leadership, clarity and a long-term strategy. If housing associations want to plan for the future, they need to do so in 10 or 20-year cycles. At the moment, with some schemes running for only six months, it is very difficult to plan or invest in some of the basics to do with upskilling our local communities.

In conclusion, I have three questions for the Minister. How will he respond and focus on the long term—despite the current challenges—rather than on the short term, in getting to net zero by 2050? What support will be given to the private rented sector and landlords on retrofitting? What investment is going into stimulating green hydrogen, beyond blue hydrogen, with our various projects, whether in the north-east or in the north-west, which are fantastic for energy-intensive industries? We need that investment, and we need it now.

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[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

We have had a good and important debate this afternoon. I congratulate the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) on bringing forward the debate and on the exemplary way in which he put forward his case. I largely agree with what he said, particularly his emphasis on conditions in homes in the north of England and the work we need to do on retrofitting. He gave a number of instances of homes in the north of England and their circumstances, particularly the average age of properties, and the fact that it is rather colder up north than it is down south—I say that as the Member for Southampton, Test.

In the north of England, property stock is substantially older than the average for the UK and, as the hon. Member for Darlington mentioned, that older stock is substantially single-skinned properties, which need different forms of treatment from properties with cavity wall insulation. From energy efficiency surveys, it is interesting to see that pre-1930s properties have a median energy efficiency score of 56, according to the report I am looking at, whereas buildings built from 2012 onwards have a median energy efficiency score of over 80. So we have a huge block of properties in the north of England that have very low energy efficiency scores, and it is difficult to do anything about them other than provide whole-house treatment for the amelioration of their problems.

Bearing in mind that issue, we also have a huge gap between the emissions from new build properties and those from existing dwellings. Indeed, the north-east has one of the largest gaps between emissions from new and old properties. In the north-east, there are emissions of just over 1.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from a new property, compared with over twice that amount—3.6 tonnes per year—for existing properties. So there is a huge job to be done, particularly in properties in the north of England, to help us get to our net zero targets and to retrofit properties throughout the country.

The call from the hon. Member for Darlington for much more work to be done on the energy retrofit of properties is important for climate change purposes and for future energy bills. It is estimated that £400 to £500 can be saved from energy bills in an uprated energy-efficient property. It is also important for the comfort and good living that we expect in any household in the country. The problem relating to damp and older properties is not just in his part of the world, but in the north generally. This debate is timely and important, and we must have the retrofit debate in the not too distant future.

I cannot be entirely non-political in this debate, as the hon. Member suggested we should be, although we all agree in this Chamber on what we want to do with retrofitted properties and on why it is important and relevant to climate change, fuel poverty and the welfare of citizens.

[Peter Gibson]

I am pleased to hear the tone of the hon. Gentleman’s speech up to this point. Although the debate is focused on the north and north-east, and on the types of housing stock in my constituency and other northern constituencies, I am sure that the type of housing stock in his own constituency—perhaps he will mention that—would benefit from some of the improvements, even though his constituency is on the south coast.

[Dr Whitehead]

I can assure the hon. Member that I am not approaching this debate as if all the retrofit problems are in the north of England and not in the south. It is a national scandal that homes across the UK have got some of the worst energy efficiency performances of any properties in Europe. On other occasions the Minister has said that it is not such a big problem because of the way in which energy efficiency has increased in our housing overall in the last few years.

However, if we look at all parts of the country, there is a big lag between the energy efficiency, albeit under slightly different circumstances, across the country and the energy efficiency of new properties, so the figures do not quite tell the truth as far as energy efficiency improvement is concerned. Most of that improvement is because newer housing, recently built properties, are so much more energy-efficient than older properties. In fact, as we can see from the collapse of energy efficiency retrofit arrangements after 2012, there has not been a great deal of movement in the energy efficiency of properties in all parts of the country. The north of England faces even worse problems in getting its property up to retrofit standards than other parts of the country.

[Peter Gibson]

All of us in this Chamber have alluded to the scale and size of the problem. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is also a really complex problem because of the types of ownership of some of our properties? We are not talking about just one type of ownership. There are private landlords, social housing providers, absentee landlords and private homeowners, which makes the problem particularly complex. As we have so much time remaining in the debate, I would be incredibly grateful to the hon. Gentleman if he could outline some of his suggestions and proposals to tackle the problem.

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Member invites me to make a lengthy speech about what my party has in mind for energy retrofit, but also about what my party has in mind for dealing with complex situations in different sectors of the housing market. He rightly says that the question of energy efficiency standards is very different in different tenures of property—social housing, private rented sector and owner-occupied housing—and the solutions that one needs to put forward have to be different for different kinds of tenure. Furthermore, as I am sure the hon. Member has noticed, those tenures are intermixed with each other in most areas, so there are very few parts of the country where there is just one kind of tenure.

In my constituency, one of the issues is that there is a very high level of houses in multiple occupation and properties that are rented out by private landlords. There is also a substantial student population in my city, so a number of the houses are rented out by private landlords on a quick turnover, and with very little regard for the energy efficiency of those properties in the long term. Although one might say that the general housing arrangements in my city are better for energy efficiency than in some other parts of the country, there are specific issues relating to how energy efficiency might be looked at. One issue is just how bad energy efficiency is in the private rented sector and what measures need to be undertaken to get those houses to a decent level of energy efficiency in order to make them marketable rental properties.

In the past, a specific part of the legislation was on minimum energy efficiency standards. We think that needs to go a lot further by addressing the marketability of homes and the requirement on landlords to get those properties up to a decent energy efficiency level in order to rent them out in the first place. As the hon. Member for Darlington will know, there is legislation in place that requires landlords to bring their properties up to the band E energy efficiency requirement, but that is grossly insufficient for the targets that we need to set on getting the private rented sector up to scratch with energy efficiency.

[Peter Gibson]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s indulgence in giving way a third time, and for him talking about putting the burden of meeting those property costs on some of our landlords. We have seen examples of landlords being forced to do some of the work that is required to bring their properties up to standard. As a result, they are exiting the market—some people might say that is a good thing—and then selling the properties, which is having a deflationary impact on the value of properties in specific localities. In turn, that compounds the problem of the ratio between the cost and value of the asset and the cost and value of the investment required, which can actually have the opposite effect to the one desired.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Gibson]

It is a pleasure to follow the Minister, and I thank him for his response to today’s debate. It has been a healthy debate. We heard some great speeches from my hon. Friend, neighbour and constituent the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell), the hon. Members for Stockport (Navendu Mishra), for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) and for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood), and the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), although I was disappointed to not actually hear the meat and drink of Labour’s plans to tackle the problem.

We had interventions from my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) and the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), who gave me the great line that tacking this problem is a “win-win-win-win-win” situation. We also had a deeply political intervention from the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), who is no longer in her place.

It is clear that the Minister understands the challenges of our housing stock—the energy, retrofitting, disruption and lost income costs and the energy wastage—but also sees the benefits of warm homes, less leakage, improved health, skills and jobs that tackling this problem will bring. It was wonderful to hear the progress that has been made over the last 10 years, taking us from 14% to 46% of homes having an energy performance certificate of C or better, but let us accelerate that and make sure this is a win for the environment, homes, bill payers, jobs and skills.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered energy efficiency of homes in the north of England.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

Order. The mover of the motion for the next debate is not here. I will give him a couple of minutes, but I will otherwise have to suspend the sitting until 4.30 pm.