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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to support training and apprenticeships in the construction sector to increase the number of qualified insulators to help meet targets to reduce emissions from people’s homes.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) launched a £6.9m skills competition in September 2020 to provide training opportunities for energy efficiency and low carbon heating supply chains to deliver works and scale up to meet additional consumer demand. Funding is provided to support training individuals with existing skills and those new to the sector in energy efficiency and clean heat measures, along with support for installation companies to gain the required PAS 2030 standards or Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) accreditation, including possible contribution to certification costs.

Applications for the scheme are now closed. 18 successful applicants have been awarded a total sum of £6.4 million and have now started training, offering free or subsidised courses covering a wide range of skills and certifications across both energy efficiency and clean heat measures.

The Government is investing in the UK workforce to ensure that people have the right skills and qualifications to deliver the low-carbon transition and thrive in the high-value jobs this will create. BEIS and the Department for Education (DfE) are jointly leading work to consider the skills and jobs needed to help deliver net zero, including green retrofit skills. The Green Jobs Taskforce is working with industry, unions and providers to develop solutions and recommendations that will be refined into a shortlist of high impact actions that will make up a final Green Jobs Action Plan due to be published in Summer 2021.