House Insulation (Hansard, 27 February 1991)

§ 5. Mr. Battle
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what help is offered to local authority tenants to insulate their homes.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Tony Baldry:)
The Government are firmly committed to encouraging greater energy efficiency in local authority dwellings. Substantial capital resources are made available to local authorities to improve their housing stock, and advice and grants are available to tenants on low incomes to insulate their homes.

§ Mr. Battle
Is the Minister aware that the home insulation scheme has been reduced to the programme that is run by the energy action grants agency scheme in Newcastle and that that is leading to cowboy contractors knocking on the doors of pensioners and people on low incomes, asking for deposits in advance and then disappearing? Would not it be better to have a home insulation scheme that is properly administered and monitored by local authorities to prevent that unscrupulous abuse, to ensure that the scheme results in home improvements for council tenants and that poor people are not left in the cold?

§ Mr. Baldry
The home energy efficiency scheme is an excellent scheme, to which £27 million has been made available for this financial year. That is a significant increase on the level of help that has been made available to low-income households in the past. The scheme expects to undertake 200,000 insulation jobs this year. Network installers have been registered in all parts of the country and all low-income households have access to a network installer. If the hon. Gentleman has a scintilla of evidence about the scheme not working properly, I suggest that he makes it available to my hon. Friends in the Department of Energy. The energy efficiency agency that is running the scheme is highly reputable and, I am sure, will be concerned about any suggestions made by the hon. Gentleman that any network installer is not coming up to standard. Unless the hon. Gentleman is prepared to give that evidence, he should stop decrying the scheme.

§ Mr. Colvin
Will my hon. Friend acknowledge that a lot of money is wasted on insulation? Does he further agree that what we want is a uniform national scheme of rating for energy efficiency for buildings? At the moment, we have the national home energy rating scheme and Starpoint. Will my hon. Friend get in touch with his opposite number at the Department of Energy and ask the Department to initiate a uniform scheme, which would make it a great deal easier for my hon. Friend to honour the undertaking that his Department has given to review building regulations to take account of energy efficiency factors in home construction?

§ Mr. Baldry
The methodology on which both those schemes are based has been developed by the Building Research Establishment. I have no doubt that the Starpoint and national home energy rating schemes are considering ways to ensure that there is the least possible confusion about home energy rating for local authorities and home owners.

§ Mr. Win Griffiths
The Minister must be aware that about 170 million tonnes of carbon dioxide are thrown up into the atmosphere every year from homes in Britain. Will 966 he admit that the scheme for which his and other Departments are responsible, which seeks to reduce our energy consumption, are miserable and, at the moment, hardly doing anything to meet the problem of global warming or even our commitment to stabilise the emission of carbon dioxide by 2005? Will the Government show a radical response and announce some positive schemes that would reduce significantly the amount of carbon dioxide that is thrown into the atmosphere from homes in Britain?

§ Mr. Baldry
The amounts of money that are being made available to promote energy efficiency improvements just among local authority tenants are substantial; 25 per cent. of the £3.5 billion of local authority capital investment was spent on improving heating and home insulation last year; 25 per cent. of the £450 million of estate action resources went on heating and insulation improvements; £60 million is being spent on the energy efficiency demonstration programme and, as I have already made clear, £27 million has been made available for the home energy efficiency scheme. The sums of money allocated to promote energy efficiency among local authority tenants alone are rightly substantial because we want to ensure maximum energy efficiency throughout our housing stock.