Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of low carbon heating technologies on new build homes; and what funding from the public purse is being made available to those technologies.

The Government remains fully committed to meeting its target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and recognises the important contribution that the energy efficiency of buildings has to make in meeting it. We have committed to introduce a Future Homes Standard by 2025. This means new homes will be fit for the future, with low carbon heating and lower energy use through high levels of energy efficiency.

As a stepping stone towards the Future Homes Standard we are proposing a strengthening of these requirements in 2020 and then a further strengthening by 2025. We have consulted on a meaningful and achievable increase to the energy efficiency standards for new homes to be introduced through the Building Regulations in 2020. The analysis that underpinned this consultation considered the effect of low carbon heating technologies on the cost of building new homes, the cost of bills for consumers and of the carbon emissions of these new homes.

There are no current plans for any additional funding to be made available to support low carbon heating in new homes.