To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of (1) the contribution of the policies in the Heat and Buildings Strategy towards the United Kingdom’s (a) net zero emissions target, and (b) carbon budgets, and (2) the co-benefits of the transition to net zero.
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and in so doing declare my interest as a director of Peers for the Planet.
My Lords, to meet net zero, virtually all heat in buildings will need to be decarbonised. The net-zero strategy outlines that we expect that emissions could fall by between 25% and 37% by 2030 and 47% to 62% by 2035 compared with 2019 levels, based on an indicative heat and buildings pathway. The heat and buildings strategy shows our robust plans to do so.
I thank the Minister for that response. Although I welcome the heat and buildings strategy, including the clear focus on heat pumps, it was silent on embodied carbon, which forms a large proportion of emissions from the built environment— 50 million tonnes in CO2 equivalents a year, equivalent to aviation and shipping combined—so there is a strong case to report and regulate. Can the Minister say what plans the Government have towards mandatory reporting of carbon emissions in the built environment, along with regulating to limit carbon emissions in construction projects?
The noble Lord makes a very good point. We need to look at embodied carbon much more closely. Indeed, I attended and launched a session on exactly that at the COP climate change talks. We will work with industry practitioners to see what more we can do in this important area.
My Lords, I apologise for my premature intervention. Are all domestic new builds taking place since the Glasgow COP meeting last month being built to the new specifications required by the Heat and Buildings Strategy? If not, why not?
The new building regulations for net-zero homes will take effect from 2025, but of course we are not waiting that long to take action. The new Part Z of the building regulations will kick in from next year.
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that living standards generally can rise only if we produce more output per head? Conversely, living standards will fall if we need more workers to produce our existing level of output of energy or heating. Yet this strategy says that upgrading our homes and buildings to warm them without using fossil fuels will require 240,000 more workers than at present, who will no longer be able to produce other goods and services. Does my noble friend think that reducing the average living standards of the country is what people voted for?
I am sure people did not vote to have their living standards reduced. Indeed, we have an excellent record of both decarbonising and growing the GDP per head of population. We have a very successful record of doing that so far, and I hope we will continue to be able to do so. I remind my noble friend that whatever our individual views on this, we now have a legal obligation to meet net zero.
Lord Broers (CB)
My Lords, while complimenting the Minister and the Government on getting on with the SMR programme, I ask him whether sites are being sought for these reactors where the heat they produce can be used in district heating systems for buildings, industry and horticulture.
The noble Lord links together two important facets of this work: the importance of getting on with building new nuclear capacity, which I think is widely recognised, and the importance of developing heat networks. We do not have such a tradition of heat networks in this country, but they are rapidly expanding and we are investing hundreds of millions of pounds in future heat networks.
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that after the publication of this strategy, he indicated that the decision on hydrogen-based heating for homes would not be taken until 2025? If so, what advice does he give now to householders whose boilers are running out of time? Should they buy a heat pump or a hydrogen-ready boiler, or wait until the price of air pumps comes down and a decision is taken in at least four years?
The noble Lord is correct about the timescale for taking a decision on hydrogen. It is not yet a mature technology in terms of whether it would be available in sufficient quantities on a wide enough scale to be used for home heating. We are funding a large series of trials, moving towards a hydrogen neighbourhood, a hydrogen village and then a hydrogen town-level trial before we can advise people to take that forward. In the meantime, we have set our ambition to phase out the sale of gas boilers by 2035.
My Lords, is the Minister aware of the concern expressed by the Climate Change Committee over the lack of an integrated offer on home retrofit for home owners who want to upgrade the energy efficiency of their homes? What do the Government intend to do to work with industry to correct this clear market failure?