Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what type of heating system is the primary source of heating in each building occupied by his Department and its agencies; and what fuel is used by those heating systems.

The Government Property Agency (GPA) manages approximately 30% of the government’s central estate offices and acts as a landlord to government department clients (including Cabinet Office) located within those offices. GPA is an Executive Agency of the Cabinet Office.

The majority of GPA’s properties have heating systems served by boilers. This includes the Whitehall District Heating System; a system owned and operated by GPA that distributes heating to premises in the Whitehall estate.

GPA’s newly developed assets have utilised more carbon efficient forms of heating. One such example is the new hub in Birmingham at 23 Stephenson Street which has a mechanical heat recovery ventilation system with electricity as its fuel source.

As was set out in the Heat and Buildings Strategy and the Net Zero Strategy on 19th October, we are clear that decarbonising public sector buildings will demonstrate leadership, encouraging action in other sectors as well as making a direct contribution to Net Zero. We aim to reduce direct emissions from public sector buildings by 75% against a 2017 baseline by the end of carbon budget 6.

Over £1 billion has been committed in the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme over 2020/21 and 2021/22 to support heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency in the public sector, and a further £1.425 billion will be invested over 2022/23 to 2024/25.