Kwarteng says energy efficiency funding will go beyond GHG

Energy minister Kwasi Kwarteng has pledged that funding for energy efficiency upgrades will continue when the current Green Homes Grant programme ends.

Following a keynote address yesterday (15 September) for Warm Homes Week, the minister was quizzed about whether the government will implement the Conservative party’s manifesto commitment to invest £9.2 billion on energy efficiency during the current Parliament.

Kwarteng said he is pressing the Treasury to go beyond the existing £3 billion worth of measures, announced in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s summer statement.

“It won’t be the end of government programmes to upgrade the housing stock.

“It is really important to reiterate that we have a manifesto commitment to a large degree of spending in this area. My job is to remind colleagues in Treasury of the manifesto commitment. They are also conscious of what we promised and to actually deliver on that.

“The manifesto commitment will be taken very seriously.”

The minister had earlier announced in his address that his department will be carrying out a public consultation into extending the Warm Homes Discount into the winter of 2021/22.

He said that the consultation would include “tweaks” to the scheme, which provides a £140 discount every winter to fuel poor, elderly households.

Kwarteng also stressed the important role he believes hydrogen will play in achieving the government’s broader 2050 target for net zero.

“Eighty five per cent of people rely on gas and we need to shift that to get anywhere near decarbonisation. The challenge is to decarbonise the network itself.

“Hydrogen has risen up through the priority list. If we reach net zero target, hydrogen would have played a big part in that.”

Kwarteng also said that the updated fuel poverty strategy, which he hoped to publish soon, is “key” to the government’s wider agenda to level up the economic performance of poorer parts of the country.

“This is right at the heart of the strategy that in many ways defines this government.”

Lord Deben, chair of the Committee on Climate Change, told a separate event yesterday afternoon that improving the energy efficiency of housing stock is particularly important in a north of England context.

“You have a very large proportion of some of the hardest to heat housing and people with the least ability to pay the bills.”