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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he has taken to invest in the skills required for retrofitting homes; and what estimate he has made of the number of people supporting retrofitting programmes.

The Government recognises the need for a skilled, competent and robust supply chain to deliver the improvements to buildings necessary to meet the Government’s net zero targets.

The Department spent almost £6 million on a skills training competition which delivered around 7,000 training opportunities for the energy efficiency and low carbon heating supply chains.

The Government has also previously provided £4.7 million of funding over a period of two and a half years to six local supply chain demonstration pilots which tested innovative approaches for supporting and growing the energy efficiency installer supply chain.

There are over 1,600 TrustMark registered companies that are able to work on BEIS retrofitting schemes and these companies will employ more individuals that are able to work on home retrofit.