Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what funding his Department plans to allocate to local authorities to enable (a) the development of local retrofit supply chains and (b) insulation of local authority housing stock.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
In 2020 and 2021, the Government spent almost £6 million on the BEIS Skills Training Competition scheme which delivered around 7000 training opportunities for energy efficiency and low carbon heating supply chains. The Government is exploring options for further funding but at present has no plans to directly fund local authorities for supply chain development.
The Government has allocated £800m to Wave 2 of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, which is planned to be open to all registered providers of social housing, including private and local authority providers.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will establish an insulation programme that offers grant funding for people who are not able to afford the up-front costs of home insulation.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government is investing over £6.6 billion over this parliament to improve energy efficiency, supporting schemes such as the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, Home Upgrade Grant, and Local Authority Delivery scheme.
The Government also published the consultation response for the next Energy Company Obligation, helping low-income households across Great Britain benefit from insulation and heating measures.
For those not eligible for funding, the Government recognises long-term finance will be essential. The Government is working with mortgage lenders to support homeowners improve the energy performance of their properties, and with the UK Infrastructure Bank as it considers investment opportunities including those to improve energy efficiency.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he plans to make funding available to local councils to (a) insulate council housing stock and (b) invest in developing local supply chains able to retrofit home insulation.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The 2019 Conservative Manifesto committed to a £3.8billion Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) over a 10-year period to improve the energy performance of social homes. Around £240million has been awarded to social landlords through the SHDF Demonstrator and Wave 1 schemes. A further £800million was secured for SHDF in the 2021 Spending Review.
BEIS has spent nearly £6million on skills training, delivering around 7000 training opportunities for the energy-efficiency and low-carbon-heating supply chains. BEIS will continue to monitor the market and is considering options on how to work with industry to support training to increase capacity and reduce shortages.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans he has to support the insulation of privately owned homes in order that they may achieve EPC band C by 2035.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government’s Heat and Buildings Strategy sets out the actions being taken to reduce emissions from homes and buildings, including investing an additional £3.9 billion to support people to make energy efficiency changes, including insulation.
This funding will support the Home Upgrade Grant which will provide grants to low-income households to upgrade the energy performance of the worst quality, off gas grid homes in England.
Alongside this, the Green Home Grants Local Authority Delivery Scheme (LAD) is also providing financial support to those in low-income households to install measures such as solid wall insulation, cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and underfloor insulation.
In addition, the Energy Company Obligation scheme, launched in 2013, is an obligation that the Government has placed on larger energy suppliers to install energy efficiency and heating measures to low income and vulnerable households across Great Britain. This scheme has delivered around 3.29m measures in 2.31m homes, up to the end of July 2021.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what his Department's policy is on changing market rules to enable community energy groups to supply renewable energy on a local basis; and what steps his Department is taking to support local renewable electricity generation as a way of meeting the UK's Carbon Budget.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The current Ofgem regulatory regime allows for a company to supply a specified geographic area, and small scale electricity operations may be able to operate without being regulated by Ofgem.
We are supporting community energy through the Rural Community Energy Fund and there are already mechanisms in the market to allow local supply. We will work with Ofgem to ensure that local communities can play their role in delivering Net Zero and a Green Recovery.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the Green Alliance's report entitled Getting the building blocks right Infrastructure priorities for a green recovery, published on 11 November 2020, whether the Government has made an assessment of whether there is an investment gap as cited in that report in helping the Government to reach its net-zero target; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Delivering net zero requires the deep decarbonisation of all sectors – with the CCC estimating that low carbon investment should reach £50 billion a year by 2050. Financial services will be a critical enabler of green investment at the pace and scale required – and that is why green finance is a key priority for this Government. Our approach has seen the UK power sector attract over £93 billion of green investment since 2010.
Spanning clean energy, buildings, transport, nature and innovative technologies, the 10 Point Plan has committed £12 billion of government investment and will unlock three times as much from the private sector by 2030. The Government has also recently launched a new infrastructure bank for the UK which will co-invest alongside private sector investors and accelerate our ambitions for tackling climate change and levelling up. The UK Infrastructure Bank will have an initial £12 billion of capital to deploy and will be able to issue £10 billion of government guarantees, helping to unlock more than £40 billion of overall investment. This year the Government will also issue its first Sovereign Green Bond - subject to market conditions – helping to finance projects that will tackle climate change.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the G7 Climate and Environment: Ministers’ Communiqué, published on 21 May 2021, when the long-term strategy for the UK’s pathway to zero greenhouse emissions by 2050 will be published.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Net Zero Strategy will be published before COP26, and will build on my Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. This will be our Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategy to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in our information to facilitate clarity, transparency and understanding that accompanied the UK’s new nationally determined contribution back in December.
A number of sector strategies are also being published this year, as well as the Net Zero Strategy, including the Heat and Buildings Strategy and the Hydrogen Strategy.
We have also recently published the Transport Decarbonisation Plan – the first such Plan in the world – setting transport on the path to net zero by 2050.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what policies his Department (a) has proposed and (b) plans to propose to help the Government meet the 2050 net zero target.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
My Rt. Hon. Friemd the Prime Minister has set out his Ten Point Plan for the UK to lead the world into a Green Industrial Revolution. This innovative programme sets out ambitious policies and £12 billion government investment to support up to 250,000 green jobs, accelerate our path to reaching net zero by 2050 and lay the foundations for our green recovery by building back greener from COVID-19.
The Energy White Paper sets out our plans for the transformation of our energy system, including actions to fully decarbonise electricity generation by 2050. This drives forward the Ten Point Plan commitments, reaffirming how clean energy means jobs and economic growth for the whole country, moving on from COVID-19 to build back better, support green jobs, and accelerate our path to net zero.
In March this year we published the Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy, the first by a major economy which sets out how industry can decarbonise in line with net zero while remaining competitive and without pushing emissions abroad. The strategy includes ambitions and expectations such as emissions in industry needing to fall by around two thirds by 2035, as well as policy priorities for the next ten years and seeks to provide industry with the long-term certainty it needs to invest in decarbonisation. We also recently published the Transport Decarbonisation Plan – the first such Plan in the world – setting transport on the path to net zero by 2050.
Through the above plans, we have set out the concrete steps that we will take to build back greener from the pandemic and reach net zero emissions by 2050. Ahead of COP26, we will bring forward further bold proposals, including a Net Zero Strategy, to cut emissions and create new jobs and industries across the whole country.
We are also publishing a number of sector strategies this year, as well as the Net Zero Strategy, including the Heat and Buildings Strategy and a Hydrogen Strategy.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many home owners have applied successfully to the Green Home Grants scheme from Croydon Central constituency, to date.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Official statistics for the Green Homes Grant (Voucher) Scheme were released on 18 March. From this release, 64 applications were received from households in the Croydon Central Parliamentary Constituency, up to the end of February.
The next statistical release will be published on 22 April.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent progress has been made on (a) removing and (b) replacing fossil fuel boilers in (i) public sector and (ii) private sector homes.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
BEIS have been supporting the installation of renewable heating systems in public and private sector homes and buildings via the Renewable Heat Incentive. The Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive has supported 84,707 installations as of December 2020 and the Non-Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive has supported 20,673 installations as of December 2020.
The Green Homes Grant Voucher scheme aims to deliver energy efficiency and clean heat upgrades to 600,000 homes across England. Clean heat measures (including heat pumps, solar thermal panels and biomass boilers) are one of the groups of primary measures funded through the scheme.
The £1 billion Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme provides grants for public sector bodies to fund energy efficiency and heat decarbonisation measures, including low carbon heating. My Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan included a commitment for further funding for the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme in the 2021/22 financial year, with more information to be announced in due course.
In addition to this, BEIS’ Heat Networks Investment Project has awarded over £125m for the development and construction of heat networks in England and Wales since its launch in 2018. This will enable greater deployment of heat networks as an alternative to domestic boilers.