May I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for everything she has done in her parliamentary and ministerial career, and associate myself with your comments, Mr Speaker, about my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)? I know that my right hon. Friend is leaving this place to do something perhaps even more important, which is to run our COP 26 summit next year in Glasgow, and I know that she will do an absolutely outstanding job. She is completely right that it would be far more wonderful for this country to focus on what we can do to lead the world in tackling the problems of the environment and climate change rather than frittering away yet more political time and capital on two more pointless referendums. I thoroughly agree with her proposal.

The attached table shows the number of measures delivered under the current phase of the Energy Company Obligation (ECO3) for the latest data available (October 2018 – February 2019) for each Parliamentary constituency in Great Britain. In order to manage the risk of revealing personal or commercial data, our approach is not to release non-zero counts of less than five for a small geographic area so these have been shown as 1-4 where applicable.

In 2018 we consulted on the level of the Warm Home Discount rebate and decided to maintain the current level in order to provide it to the maximum number of households. Since then, the Government has also taken action to protect 11 million households with the introduction of the energy price cap.

Disabled people on means-tested benefits are eligible under the Broader Group of the Warm Home Discount. The Government is considering how to improve the fuel poverty targeting of the scheme and will be consulting on any proposed changes in due course.

In 2018 we consulted on the level of the Warm Home Discount rebate and decided to maintain the current level in order to provide it to the maximum number of households. Since then, the Government has also taken action to protect 11 million households with the introduction of the energy price cap.

Disabled people on means-tested benefits are eligible under the Broader Group of the Warm Home Discount. The Government is considering how to improve the fuel poverty targeting of the scheme and will be consulting on any proposed changes in due course.

The Department considered whether solar thermal should be allowed for space heating when the scheme was being designed in 2012/2013. The decision to restrict support to domestic hot water only solar thermal systems for the domestic RHI was based on the following considerations:

• At the time that we made our decision, market intelligence showed that only a small minority of solar thermal systems were designed to provide space heating and there was limited performance data.
• Supporting solar thermal for space heating would not present good value for money, as the RHI is taxpayer-funded – this is because solar thermal systems are only capable of meeting a small portion of a house’s heat demand, and are not as cost-effective in space heating when compared to other technologies.

The Government currently has no plans to review its position on support for solar thermal on the RHI.

The Environment Agency provides advice on how businesses should comply with environmental law through guidance on Gov.uk. In order to regulate businesses it provides advice on the best available techniques and approaches that enable businesses to comply with the law and helps businesses with the best available compliance techniques. We are also committed to working closely with the private sector to support the effective management of climate-related financial risks.

We are regularly engaging at Ministerial and official level with interested countries and the Western European and Others Group of the United Nations, as part of a coordinated cross-Government effort to demonstrate the UK is a committed, effective and ambitious leader on climate change and a good potential COP26 host. Our offer to host builds on the strong progress we have made towards the legally binding targets in our world-leading Climate Change Act, and on our broader climate credentials. Between 1990 and 2017, we have reduced our emissions by over 40 per cent while growing the economy by more than two thirds. In order to continue this progress, we have placed clean growth at the heart of our Industrial Strategy and made it one of four Grand Challenges. Thanks to this robust platform of domestic action and our diplomatic network, we continue to be at the forefront of encouraging the world to move towards clean growth.

Transforming how we heat our homes is one of the most difficult decarbonisation challenges facing the country. A number of options have the potential for achieving this, including heat networks, heat pumps, hydrogen and biogas. We need to continue exploring and testing different approaches to heat decarbonisation.

Through the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme we are spending £4.5 billion between 2016 and 2021 to support innovative low-carbon heat technologies in homes and businesses, including heat pumps. BEIS is considering the future policy framework for supporting electrification of heat and we are looking to launch an electrification of heat demonstration project in 2019 to inform our thinking on the feasibility of a large-scale transition to heat pumps.

For hydrogen as an option for decarbonising heat, more work is needed to prove the safety and feasibility case as well as to gain a better understanding of the costs and benefits. BEIS is currently working towards building a programme of work to address these evidence gaps in partnership with industry, academia and other key stakeholders. This includes the £25m BEIS-funded Hy4Heat programme, which is exploring the safety of using 100% hydrogen for heating in buildings and the development of domestic hydrogen boilers.

As part of the environmental permit application, and before any hydraulic fracturing can take place, operators must submit a waste management plan to the Environment Agency for approval. This describes the processes and the types of extractive waste that will be generated at the site. The plan must set out how the operator will manage, minimise, reuse, recycle and dispose safely of the extractive waste, and how they will monitor the extractive waste.

Where an energy supplier fails its customers are quickly transferred to another supplier appointed by Ofgem and their account balances are protected. Ofgem are considering a range of options to limit consumers’ exposure to the costs of supplier failures and plan to consult further in the summer.

The choice for consumers has increased from 13 suppliers in 2010 to around 60 now, with a wide range of innovative tariffs, competitive prices and low-carbon products.

According to data held by the Competition and Markets Authority, the annual switching rate for suppliers of Liquified Petroleum Gas in 2016, 2017 and 2018 is:

* Calculated as the percentage of customers switching away compared to the size of the customer base at the start of the year.

The data regarding mains gas switching is publicly available information, and can be found at https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/number-domestic-customers-switching-supplier-fuel-type-gb

Energy suppliers are responsible for the procurement of smart meters and have commercial incentives to drive down the costs of metering. Moreover, a number of meter manufacturers operate in the GB energy market and competition in the supply of meters also helps to exert downward pressure on costs.

Consumers pay for metering costs (whether traditional or smart) as part of their energy bills. The Government has put measures in place to prohibit energy suppliers from charging households upfront for the costs of a smart meter and its installation.

Energy policy, including heat, is devolved for Northern Ireland. Section 113 of the Energy Act 2011 contains provisions enabling the Northern Ireland Executive to make regulations to introduce and operate a RHI scheme in Northern Ireland. The GB RHI scheme is completely separate to the NI RHI scheme, with different scheme rules. Between 1990 and 2016, Northern Ireland reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 16%[1].

The Government has been working with Northern Ireland’s Executive in areas such as the future of carbon pricing after we leave the European Union.

The UK Government and the Devolved Administrations (the Scottish Government; the Welsh Government; and the Northern Ireland Executive) have jointly published a consultation document on the UK’s future approach to carbon pricing. The consultation plays a vital role in helping the government fulfil its commitment to carbon pricing as an effective emissions reduction tool, as outlined in the Clean Growth Strategy

This is a joint consultation and the Devolved Administrations are co-authors and Government officials have worked with devolved administration’s counterparts throughout the process. At ministerial level I have regular quadrilaterals and Northern Ireland is represented by senior civil servants.

[1] Source: http://naei.beis.gov.uk/reports/reports?report_id=958

Over the last five years, Drax’s renewable electricity generation from the co-firing of biomass and the conversion of coal-fired units to 100% biomass has been supported under the Renewables Obligation (RO) scheme. From 21 December 2016, Drax’s 3rd Conversion Unit (Unit 1) has received support under the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme. Units 2, 3 and 4 remain under the RO.

Information is not available on support under the RO specifically for burning wood pellets. Therefore, the figures in the table below give the value of support for all of Drax’s renewable electricity generation under the scheme, to the nearest million pounds.

Payments to individual projects are not reported separately under the CfD scheme. The total value of payments to all the CfD supported projects is available in the annual reports from the Low Carbon Contracts Company, the CfD scheme administrator, at: https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/publications?f%5B0%5D=field_publications_category%3A29

[1] The Renewables Obligation figures are the notional value of support, based on Ofgem’s certificate report as at 01/05/2019 from their Renewables and CHP Register.

The Government believes that carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) has the potential to play an important role in meeting the UK’s climate targets. CCUS can add value to the economy and help tackle hard to decarbonise sectors.

Our CCUS Action Plan is designed to progress CCUS in the UK, including enabling the UK’s first CCUS facility to be operational from the mid-2020s. CCUS is also likely to play an important role in achieving our Industrial Clusters Mission, creating the world’s first net-zero industrial cluster by 2040.

In progressing CCUS, the UK has already established a robust regulatory framework for CCUS, with regulations applying to licensing, environmental inspection and CO₂ storage, operation and monitoring activities. This means that any CCUS project will need to comply with a rigorous health and safety assessment and require permits and approval from relevant environment agencies, the Health and Safety Executive and the Oil and Gas Authority.

The consultation on a Smart Export Guarantee closed on 5 March 2019. We are currently analysing the responses we received and will publish a government response in due course.

Network charging is a matter for Ofgem as the independent regulator, and decisions on any changes to charging arrangements are for it to make. Ofgem is considering the future of some embedded benefits, which relate to the charging arrangements for smaller generators connected to the electricity distribution system, as part of its ongoing Targeted Charging Review. The review is seeking to ensure that all parties connected to the electricity network make a fair contribution to its fixed costs. Ofgem has not yet concluded its review, and is currently considering responses received to a consultation held earlier this year on reform proposals.

Carbon budgets four and five end in 8 and 13 years respectively and we are already over 90% of the way towards meeting them from a 1990 baseline, even before many of the policies and proposals in the Clean Growth Strategy are taken into account.

The Strategy sets out our plans to build on our progress in decarbonising the power sector, while looking further across the whole of the economy and the country. It includes ambitious proposals on housing, business, transport, the natural environment and green finance.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/clean-growth-strategy