Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when he plans to publish revised guidance for planning authorities on requiring onsite carbon neutral energy generation in new building permissions.

The National Planning Policy Framework is clear that the planning system should support the transition to a low carbon future in a changing climate and we will make sure that the reformed planning system further supports our efforts to combat climate change and help bring greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

Alongside this, the Government sets minimum energy efficiency standards for buildings through the Building Regulations. From 2025, the Future Homes Standard will ensure that new homes produce at least 75% fewer CO2 emissions than those built to the 2013 standards and highly efficient new non-domestic buildings. Homes and buildings constructed to these Standards will be future-proofed with low carbon heating and high levels of energy efficiency. No further energy efficiency retrofit work will be necessary to enable them to become zero-carbon over time as the electricity grid continues to decarbonise.

To work towards this, in December 2021 we introduced an uplift in energy efficiency standards, which will come into force in June 2022. The uplift delivers a meaningful reduction in carbon emissions; once the uplift comes into force new homes will be expected to deliver around 30% fewer CO2 emissions compared to the previous standards and new non-domestic buildings will be expected to produce 27% fewer CO2 emissions.