10-point Plan: Six Months On

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When MPs talk to their constituents, we hear them talk about range anxiety, and it is critical that we have the right charging infrastructure to drive forward the EV roll-out. We have committed public funds to this, but I am very happy to discuss with her, as it is obviously critically important. I feel that we are in a good place, but I would be very interested to hear her ideas.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

The 10-point plan announced 50,000 new jobs in energy efficiency, which may or may not have been in addition to the 80,000 new jobs that were due to be created by the green homes grant announced last summer in the Government’s plan for jobs. My repeated written questions to the Department to clarify whether those 50,000 jobs are in addition to the 80,000 have not yet elicited a clear answer, so could the Secretary of State tell me how many jobs in energy efficiency have been created so far, and what plans are in place to create more, now that the green homes grant has been scrapped with no plan to replace it?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The 50,000 jobs related to the green homes grant. The hon. Lady will know that there were three elements to the green homes grant. One related to the decarbonisation of public sector buildings. That was £1 billion deployed through Salix. That has gone extremely well. Of the remaining £2 billion, £500 million was to be disbursed by local authorities for council housing, social housing and people who are vulnerable. That programme is going very well. What has been rejigged has been the half that related to owner-occupied buildings. It was a short-term stimulus plan that was due to run out in March this year, and we are looking at a replacement scheme.