Energy Bill [Lords]

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

Finally, we have an opportunity now to lean in to providing the decarbonisation that people want and need to see, and to keeping the lights on while keeping bills down. If we think smartly, go with the grain of what communities want—including what is set out in the excellent new clause 48, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), which proposes that we stop building huge solar farms on agricultural land and put them on brownfield and less sensitive sites instead—put power infrastructure in less environmentally sensitive areas and help communities to earn some money from onshore wind farms that they support in their areas, then we will be truly keeping the lights on, keeping bills down and, vitally, decarbonising, as we have committed to do.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

We all want to cut emissions and tackle climate change, but people continue to suffer from the cost of living crisis. It is important that the cost of transitioning to lower carbon alternatives is not left to individuals to shoulder on their own.

The Government propose phasing out the use of high-carbon fossil fuel heating from the gas grid by banning the installation of new gas-fuelled boilers from 2026, and they advocate the alternative of heat pumps. While heat pumps have an important role to play in the decarbonisation of home heating, a heat pump only approach risks unfairly burdening off-grid rural homeowners with expensive installation costs. My constituents are rightly concerned at the prospect of being made to install very costly alternative heating systems that are not fit for purpose.

Some 11 million people live in rural areas across the UK, with 15% in off-grid homes. The cost of installing a low-carbon heat pump is around four times more expensive than a replacement boiler. What is more, while a heat pump can technically be installed in all homes across the UK, and it should be in new build housing, in certain property types, such as those in rural and coastal communities like Gower, they will not run efficiently and risk increasing energy bills to unnecessarily high levels for homeowners, above those they currently pay. In some cases, that could increase the overall cost of installation to £25,000, according to the Government’s own calculator.

I welcome the fact that the Government are consulting on increasing the grants available for heat pumps in certain homes, as announced last week. However, for some, those increased grants will not go far enough in making the cost of heat pump installation workable. My constituents in Gower, many of whom are off-grid homeowners, want to play their part in reducing emissions. In fact, the majority of people who came to my summer surgeries, while concerned about the cost, wanted to do their bit to reduce carbon emissions.

As has been said in the Chamber today, renewable liquid fuels, such as renewable diesel made from hydrotreated vegetable oil, offer a cheaper alternative. They can reduce net carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions from source to end user by up to 90%. At a small cost, existing off-grid boilers can be modified to run renewable liquid fuels, such as HVO, saving the homeowner the extortionate cost of a heat pump replacement.

However, renewable liquid fuels are more expensive than their high-carbon competitor, kerosene. In order to aid swift uptake, the Energy Bill must enable the use of renewable liquid fuels, as well as introducing measures to explore reducing their cost and making them more accessible, such as a renewable liquid heating fuel obligation, mirroring what already exists in transport and aviation. That would help my constituents transition to lower-carbon alternatives and incentivise faster and wider transition, more broadly, among off-grid households. There is some consensus across the House on those measures. An effective transition to cleaner energy must ensure that rural off-grid communities, such as mine in Gower, are not left with an expensive cost burden as we transition to net zero.

To conclude, in light of the consultation on renewable liquid fuels, the Government must review their oil boiler ban. The Minister must ensure that the consultation is expedited so that all our off-grid constituents can benefit before he leaves Government.