Buildings: Insulation Measures (Hansard, 30 November 1989)

§ Lord Reay
My Lords, there are requirements in the building regulations relating to the insulation of new buildings, and the provision of controls for space heating and hot water supply systems. The Secretary of State for the Environment has recently amended the 1985 regulations, which apply in England and Wales, by upgrading the standards and introducing more flexibility in how they can be achieved. The new standards are due to come into operation on 1st April 1990, and they should achieve a saving of about 20 per cent. as compared with buildings constructed to the existing standards. The regulations for Scotland and Northern Ireland will be revised to achieve similar higher standards.

Lord Campbell of Croy
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply which is welcome. Does he agree that much energy can be saved by designing buildings which are effectively insulated and which can be ventilated by control? If this were practised widely, would it not help to conserve our resources and at the same time contribute to reducing pollution?

§ Lord Reay
My Lords, the Building Regulations Advisory Committee considers that the new requirements go to the limit of what can safely be achieved by regulations at present. It may be possible to achieve higher standards in special situations but regulations must hold good for situations where the climate and other circumstances are not always favourable. Calculations carried out by the Government's Building Research Establishment suggest that higher standards would not generally be cost effective.

§ Lord Ezra
My Lords, in preparing the new standards, which we are all pleased to learn will lead to increased energy savings, did the Government carefully consider the practices pursued in Continental countries where it is generally recognised that the insulation methods and energy savings on the construction of buildings are better than ours? If that is the case, did we learn any lessons from that study?

§ Lord Reay
My Lords, according to my information our thermal insulation standards are 514 comparable with those in other European countries. The new standards are much the same as those applying now in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, and are rather better than those in France.

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, have the Government yet discovered that conservation of energy by the methods mentioned in the Question is seven times as cost-efficient as the use of nuclear energy? Have they yet discovered why it has been decided to reduce the budget of the Energy Efficiency Office from £24.5 million to £15 million?

§ Lord Reay
My Lords, the budget of the Energy Efficiency Office was reduced because it had successfully fulfilled some of the tasks it was carrying out. Its budget for 1989 to 1990 is £15 million and will not fall below that level in the next three years.

§ Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, have the Government carried out any cost benefit analysis in relation to whether it would be cheaper to give a good deal of support to the insulation of buildings rather than to build new, costly nuclear generating stations?

§ Lord Reay
My Lords, that matter goes rather wide of the Question on the Order Paper.

§ Baroness Nicol
My Lords, has the Minister seen the work of Friends of the Earth which is based on government figures and which shows that expenditure of £3.8 billion would produce savings in energy consumption of £12 billion? Has the Minister absorbed these figures? Is there any response to them?

§ Lord Reay
My Lords, I shall take note of the figures and study them.

§ Lord Dean of Beswick
My Lords, is it not the case that about two years ago the Government introduced regulations which restricted the number of householders who could apply for thermal insulation, such as double glazing and loft insulation, to the top age groups? Was that not a retrograde step? Should we not, because of the value of saving energy, encourage all householders to pursue this kind of activity with reasonable support from the Government?

§ Lord Reay
My Lords, that point relates to existing buildings rather than new buildings which are the subject of the original Question. However, I should say that the Government are making a number of grants available to encourage energy efficiency in existing housing. The Secretary of State for Energy, for example, has just announced a new scheme of grants towards the cost of basic insulation measures in houses belonging to people on lower incomes. Legislation is proposed which will allow grants to be paid towards the cost of draught-proofing and loft, tank and pipe insulation. Details will be announced in due course.

§ Lord Dean of Beswick
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Am I to assume that those grants will be available to all age groups?

§ Lord Reay
My Lords, I cannot add anything to the information I have given. We shall have to wait for further details to be announced.

§ Lord Merrivale
My Lords, did I understand my noble friend correctly? Did he say that the standard of insulation in France is lower than in this country? If so did my noble friend take into account the possibility that the standard of construction of buildings in that country is higher than in this country?

§ Lord Reay
My Lords, I have no information about differences in standards of construction. My information relates to insulation.