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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has taken steps to ensure that households that are reliant on (a) oil heating and (b) solid fuel qualify for financial support under the Energy Company Obligation: Help to Heat scheme.

The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) does not provide direct financial support. Homes currently reliant on oil and solid fuel heating in off gas-grid areas can benefit from insulation or certain types of low carbon heating measures, such as heat pumps.

In order to qualify, these households must be on relevant means-tested benefits or identified by their local authority or energy supplier as vulnerable. For owner occupier households, the homes must also be energy efficiency Band D-G. For the private rented sector and social housing, the homes must be energy efficiency Band E-G.