§ Mrs. BrintonTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will estimate the impact on energy use of providing home buyers with tailored energy efficiency advice on properties. [1813]
§ Mr. MeacherIt is very difficult to provide an accurate quantification of the energy savings expected from the provision of energy efficiency advice. However, figures from the Energy Saving Trust's Energy Efficiency Advice Centres suggest that 60 per cent. of their customers act in some way to advice given. They estimate that this has resulted in energy savings per home of £26 per year, or around 1,600 kilo Watt hours.
As my hon. Friend may know, as part of our proposals to improve the home buying and selling process, the Government propose to require sellers to include an energy efficiency report, prepared by an approved home inspector, in a new seller's pack. The purpose is to put information in the hands of the buyer at the time they are most likely to be taking decisions about expenditure on a property.
Assuming that savings are similar to those resulting from advice given by the Advice Centres, we estimate that energy efficiency advice in the seller's pack could save around two TeraWatt hours per year. This is based on around 1.3 million home transactions per year in England and Wales.
§ Diana OrganTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what is the average interval between application and granting of moneys for the Home Energy Efficiency Scheme(a) in total, (b) in Gloucestershire and (c) the Forest of Dean. [1800]
§ Mr. MeacherThe average time taken from initial application to payment to installers is set out in the table. The figures identified include the time taken by HEES surveyors to identify measures to be installed and installers submitting and receiving payment of their invoices following completion of works, typically 6–8 weeks:
374W
Days Insulation Heating England 96 168 Gloucestershire 91 143 Forest of Dean 93 134