Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of energy performance standards in the social housing sector.

The Clean Growth Strategy set out the Government’s intention to consult on options for setting a trajectory for privately rented homes to be upgraded to Energy Performance Certificate Band C by 2030, and confirmed that we will look at how social housing can meet similar standards to the same timetable. The Strategy noted that, when looking at this, we will need to take account of the findings of the independent public inquiry into the fire at Grenfell Tower and the Government’s separate work looking at wider social housing policy issues.

The Regulator of Social Housing Homes Standard sets out the required outcomes registered providers are expected to meet in terms of Decent Homes. A home must meet a number of criteria to be regarded as a Decent Home, including that it has effective heating and insulation. According to the 2016/17 English Housing Survey (EHS), 87% (3.6 million homes) of social housing meets the Decent Homes Standard, up from 71% (2.8 million) in 2006. However, social housing still has significant potential to benefit from energy efficiency improvements to the advantage of tenants, their communities, and their landlords.