Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Cold and Damp Homes.
Alex Sobel (Labour)
We also need to overhaul the consumer protections landscape to ensure that people are confident in the process and can easily put things right if they go wrong. We are encouraged by the announcement from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero that it will address the current patchwork of protections that allow rogue traders to operate in this area. The Government need to provide access to free, independent and personalised advice throughout the home upgrade journey, including additional case-handling support for vulnerable households, which may need more support. Additionally, energy-inefficient homes are responsible for some 14% of the UK’s carbon emissions. Meeting our net zero targets will be impossible without tackling them.
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Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat)
It is not just privately rented properties with unaccountable landlords that have these issues. Many of the cases that I hear about come from tenants in social housing. My largest social housing association, Curo, has made it clear that housing providers face soaring costs. Repairs, decarbonisation, regeneration and new home delivery must all be funded from increasingly stretched social rents. Social rents are set by the Government using a “consumer prices index plus 1%” formula, but successive Governments have capped, cut and changed this model. In 2003, for example, there was a 7% rent cap, despite the CPI reaching 11% that year; meanwhile, the average operating cost per household unit rose by 11%.
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Matthew Pennycook (Labour)
We also recognise the contribution that more energy-efficient buildings will make to meeting our target of net zero emissions by 2050. Future standards, which will be introduced later this year, will set out how new homes and buildings can move away from reliance on volatile fossil fuels, and ensure they are fit for a net zero future. I look forward to updating the House on what those future standards entail in due course.
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Matthew Pennycook (Labour)
It has been acknowledged that I have some knowledge of housing, but the hon. Gentleman tempts me into an area about which I do not have particular knowledge, not least because the warm homes plan is the responsibility not of my Department but of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. I am sure that Department will have heard all the comments that have been made about the warm homes plan, and I will ensure that the relevant Ministers reflect on them.
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