Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Home Insulation.
Anna Dixon (Labour)
Another local project that I would like to pay tribute to is Saltaire Retrofit Reimagined. It is a community-led home retrofit initiative supported by the UK shared prosperity fund, as well as the Footwork Trust and the Shipley area committee. It has focused on improving heating and energy efficiency in our beautiful listed heritage properties within the Saltaire world heritage site. The project engaged with homeowners, tenants and landlords to understand their perspectives on what effective energy and insulation retrofit should look like. Based on that, the team developed bespoke, heritage-sensitive guidance for upgrading listed homes that were originally built in the 1850s and 1860s, and which are some of the most challenging properties to retrofit. The blueprint and toolkit that it has produced removes both time and cost involved for individual homes to get surveys, and provides confidence that they will get planning permission to retrofit their listed homes. Its work is inspiring and supports our national goals to reduce energy and achieve net zero. I invite the Minister to visit Shipley and Saltaire and see at first hand the great work that it is undertaking—it is a national exemplar of heritage retrofit for homes.
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Anna Dixon (Labour)
I absolutely agree that home insulation is essential in tackling not only rising energy bills but climate change. I hope the Minister will confirm the Government’s ambition to upgrade 5 million homes by the end of the current Parliament; it is a fantastic goal that will reduce energy bills.
We are also expanding the warm homes discount. I was pleased to see that 2.7 million families across the country will get £150 off their energy bills this winter, doubling the number of people able to access vital support. Around 900,000 families with children, and a total of 1.8 million households in fuel poverty, will receive extra support thanks to this Government, in addition to the winter fuel allowance being reinstated for those with incomes up to £35,000. Upgrading our homes not only puts money in people’s pockets but helps us tackle what is perhaps the biggest challenge of our age: climate change. According to the Northern Health Science Alliance, if all homes had an EPC standard of C or higher, emissions could be reduced by an estimated 97 million tonnes of CO2.
It is deeply concerning to see the political consensus around climate change fracture, and both the Tories and Reform jumping on board with Trump and climate sceptics, against all scientific evidence and sense. I welcome this Government taking climate action seriously. Labour’s clean power mission is right for both people and planet. It is the long-term solution to tackling energy insecurity.
At the hearing, we pushed Government officials from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Ofgem, the regulator, on how they would fix the problems and ensure that faulty work was put right, without its costing my constituents. Can the Minister please confirm what the Government are doing to address the issue of faulty insulation installations? How will they restore faith in schemes designed to insulate homes, as well as other energy-saving measures? It is vital that the Government rectify the mistakes of the disastrous ECO4 scheme and, more broadly, restore trust in Government-backed insulation schemes.
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