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 is taking to increase the rate of delivery of insulation measures under the Energy Company Obligation.

The Department keeps delivery progress in constant review. ECO3 is a three and a half year scheme and obligated suppliers may deliver the obligation at any time during the obligation period. Historically, delivery has been low at the start of each scheme while suppliers end one obligation period and start to build up momentum under the new scheme rules.

The scheme allows participating Local Authorities to determine eligibility and refer households to obligated suppliers, and in those cases removing the need for suppliers to target eligible households. This is a voluntary mechanism for suppliers to use, and it equates to up to 25% of ECO.

The regulations have been in force for less than six months, and there is time for suppliers to increase delivery rate up to the end of the scheme in March 2022.

Almost 2.5m insulation, heating and other measures have been delivered since ECO began in 2013. Of those 66% were for insulation. Under ECO3, so far over 54k measures have been installed. Of those, 55% were for insulation.