Draft Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Steve Reed Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 General Committees

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray.

The measures under consideration are not controversial, and we will support them, but this is perhaps an opportunity to express some concern about the Government’s green homes agenda more widely—

[The Chair]

In the context of the SI.

[Steve Reed]

Absolutely, and in response to comments made by the Minister.

Homeowners, for example, would have had more encouragement to green their homes had the Government not cancelled the zero-carbon homes standard, which was due to come into force in 2016, only later to replace it with a future homes standard that will not come in before 2025. Every year of delay pumps millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere and families spend years more in homes that are colder and more expensive to heat. Many people have commented on the failings of the green homes grants—

[The Chair]

That has nothing whatever to do with the SI.

[Steve Reed]

It is connected with the issues of concern, and the Minister was speaking about encouraging home-owners to green their homes. Sorry, I was merely making comments in response to the Minister.

[The Chair]

Stick to the draft regulations.

[Steve Reed]

Absolutely.

In a report last week, the Public Accounts Committee said that the Government have “no plans” to meet climate change targets, two years after setting them in law. The UK’s stock of 27 million houses includes some of the worst insulated and least energy-efficient homes in Europe. We hope that the Government will take the example of what is proposed in this SI to move further with that agenda and to deliver a big improvement in work to hit our climate change targets by making homes in the UK warm, dry and affordable to heat.

The provisions in the draft regulations are welcome, but we need the Government to get more serious about the green transition necessary to tackle the climate crisis. The green homes agenda should be a central plank of that.