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First, Mr Speaker, may I wish you, the right hon. Lady and all other right hon. and hon. Members a happy Christmas? I am afraid that those who wanted to buy a ticket for the pantomime at the last moment will be disappointed, because I appeared with St Paul’s Players in Chessington two weeks ago; I should have given more notice. It was “Robin Hood”, and some of us originally from Nottingham believe in some of those principles.
The right hon. Lady asked a very important question about energy efficiency. She will know that our approach has been to go after measures not only on loft insulation and cavity wall insulation—which are very important but declining in terms of availability and options because so much has been done—but on solid wall insulation, which is more expensive but vital for tackling fuel poverty and climate change.
First, Mr Speaker, may I wish you, the right hon. Lady and all other right hon. and hon. Members a happy Christmas? I am afraid that those who wanted to buy a ticket for the pantomime at the last moment will be disappointed, because I appeared with St Paul’s Players in Chessington two weeks ago; I should have given more notice. It was “Robin Hood”, and some of us originally from Nottingham believe in some of those principles.
The right hon. Lady asked a very important question about energy efficiency. She will know that our approach has been to go after measures not only on loft insulation and cavity wall insulation—which are very important but declining in terms of availability and options because so much has been done—but on solid wall insulation, which is more expensive but vital for tackling fuel poverty and climate change.
I understand that he is playing a drunken monk in “Robin Hood”.
The best way to help households permanently to cut their energy bills is to make their homes more energy-efficient. According to the Government’s own figures, 5 million households would still benefit from cavity wall insulation and over 7 million would benefit from loft insulation. Why, then, has the number of households getting loft and cavity wall insulation fallen by more than half compared with last year?
The right hon. Lady picks an odd day to ask about energy efficiency when we have announced 1 million energy efficiency measures through the green deal and the energy companies obligation. The solid wall part of the green deal home improvement fund had to close early because it was so popular and successful, so for the right hon. Lady to criticise that is remarkable. All those people who will benefit from that measure will note her words.
The right hon. Lady picks an odd day to ask about energy efficiency when we have announced 1 million energy efficiency measures through the green deal and the energy companies obligation. The solid wall part of the green deal home improvement fund had to close early because it was so popular and successful, so for the right hon. Lady to criticise that is remarkable. All those people who will benefit from that measure will note her words.
The Secretary of State does not want to admit it, but the reason so few households are getting help is that the Government caved in to the energy companies and cut the number of households they have to help. The chaos does not stop there. The latest round of the green deal home improvement fund for solid walls opened last Wednesday and closed the very next day. This is not just incompetent but wasteful. Instead of just giving money away, we could make the funding go further, in a fairer way, if it was used to support zero-interest loans for energy-efficiency, as we have proposed in our green paper.
I have to say that we have a very good record on energy efficiency, as today’s announcement of 1 million energy efficiency measures from the green deal and the ECO demonstrates. I do not know about the particular example in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I can tell him that because of some of the changes we made to the ECO this time last year, some energy efficiency schemes have not gone ahead, but what has gone ahead is a £50 cut, on average, in people’s energy bills.
I have to say that we have a very good record on energy efficiency, as today’s announcement of 1 million energy efficiency measures from the green deal and the ECO demonstrates. I do not know about the particular example in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I can tell him that because of some of the changes we made to the ECO this time last year, some energy efficiency schemes have not gone ahead, but what has gone ahead is a £50 cut, on average, in people’s energy bills.
The Secretary of State reels off statistics about home insulation, rather like a Soviet-era apparatchik talking about tractor production. Thousands of homes in Jaywick were promised home insulation at the beginning of this year. Why, at the end of the year, have only a handful of homes had that insulation, and why has the promise that more homes would get it evaporated?
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what steps he has taken to prevent contractors offering insulation under the Affordable Warmth Obligation presenting this as a Government scheme.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what steps he has taken to prevent contractors offering insulation under the Affordable Warmth Obligation presenting this as a Government scheme.
Government has set up the Energy Saving Advice Service (0300 123 1234) so people can receive independent advice about energy efficiency schemes. This service can also check eligibility for Affordable Warmth assistance and make a referral directly to an obligated energy supplier. ESAS agents explain the customer journey, making it clear to customers that ECO Affordable Warmth is an obligation that requires the largest energy suppliers to help households install energy saving improvements.
Energy suppliers and their partners may also contact people directly to identify eligible customers, including those who may benefit from insulation (and other measures) under Affordable Warmth. Businesses must adhere to the relevant regulations and codes of practice when promoting their services.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how many low income households have received home insulation support in Ashfield constituency in each of the last five years.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how many low income households have received home insulation support in Ashfield constituency in each of the last five years.
The Department publishes the number of measures that have been installed in each parliamentary constituency through the Affordable Warmth obligation of the Energy Company Obligation in Table 1.11b of its quarterly Official Statistics release:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/green-deal-energy-company-obligation-eco-and-insulation-levels-in-great-britain-quarterly-report-to-march-2014
Affordable Warmth figures include heating measures such as new boilers, as well as insulation.
Additional low income households are likely to be among the beneficiaries of the 518 insulation measures delivered in Ashfield in the same period under aspects of the Energy Company Obligation other than Affordable Warmth, but this figure cannot be broken down by income.
Figures for Warm Front are published on the Government website, and show that there were 884 households helped in 2009-10, 380 helped in 2010-11, 90 helped in 2011-12 and 106 helped in 2012-13 in the Ashfield constituency:
https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/helping-households-to-cut-their-energy-bills/supporting-pages/warm-front-scheme
Figures for the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target and Community Energy Savings Programme are not available at constituency level.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what estimate his Department has made of how many low income households in each constituency in Nottinghamshire will not have home insulation in 2015.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what estimate his Department has made of how many low income households in each constituency in Nottinghamshire will not have home insulation in 2015.
The Department does not have projections for the numbers of households with and without insulation by constituency.
We take the issue of winter deaths very seriously. If the hon. Lady looks at the numbers, she will see that, over a decade and a half or more, they have fluctuated. In fact, the largest amount of winter deaths we have known in the past decade and a half was under the previous Government. We need to have a sober, mature debate on how we tackle winter death, which is a very serious problem that needs to be dealt
with through the health service, housing, and so on. The changes we made to ECO before Christmas are very good news for people in fuel poverty, because we have not only kept the amount of ECO that goes towards dealing with fuel poverty but extended it for two more years.
We take the issue of winter deaths very seriously. If the hon. Lady looks at the numbers, she will see that, over a decade and a half or more, they have fluctuated. In fact, the largest amount of winter deaths we have known in the past decade and a half was under the previous Government. We need to have a sober, mature debate on how we tackle winter death, which is a very serious problem that needs to be dealt
with through the health service, housing, and so on. The changes we made to ECO before Christmas are very good news for people in fuel poverty, because we have not only kept the amount of ECO that goes towards dealing with fuel poverty but extended it for two more years.
Last year, the number of additional winter deaths in the north-east hit a 10-year high. Many vulnerable people living in my constituency would have benefited from having better insulated homes, but since the introduction of the Government’s energy company obligation the number of households having insulation installed has fallen by 90%. How does the Minister explain this shocking step backwards?