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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on improving the energy efficiency of homes through retrofitting to help tackle the climate emergency.

The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has regular discussions with ministerial colleagues on a number of issues.

DLUHC and BEIS work closely together on improving the energy efficiency of existing homes. As well as keeping us on our path to net zero, this will reduce energy bills for households and make our homes healthier and more comfortable.

On 19 October, the Government published its Net Zero Strategy and Heat and Building Strategy which set out the steps we will take to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and decarbonise heating, including the further investment we will make in our targeted support for households. The 2019 Conservative Manifesto committed to a £3.8 billion Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund over a 10-year period to improve the energy performance of social rented homes. As part of the 2021 Spending Review process, we announced that £800 million has been committed for the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund over 2022/23 to 2024/25, and that a further £950 million has been committed for the Home Upgrade Grant over the same period.

These strategies also set out how we will support households to move from fossil fuel heating to low carbon alternatives, such as heat pumps, including our new £450 million Boiler Upgrade Scheme providing £5,000 capital grants.