Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking ahead of COP26 to promote the importance of traditional craft and building skills to help (a) adapt and (b) sympathetically retrofit historic buildings in response to climate change.

Traditional craft and building skills have an essential role in helping to adapt and sympathetically retrofit historic buildings in response to climate change.

We recognise that there is a skills shortage in this area. Historic England, Government’s Advisor on the Historic Environment is working with the Government and the heritage sector to address this issue by developing career pathways into the sector and supporting individuals at different stages in their careers, focussing particularly on apprenticeships and on the job training, such as those provided by the Hamish Ogston Heritage Building Skills programme.