I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require residential developers to meet minimum standards of provision for insulation, broadband connectivity and electric car charging points in new homes; and for connected purposes.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to bring this Bill before the House. My Bill will underpin in statute the requirement for all new-build houses to have full-fibre broadband connections, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and improved energy efficiency through increased standards for insulation.
It has been estimated that for England alone, 345,000 new homes a year will be needed to tackle the under-supply in the market. Through commitments including the affordable homes programme, the Government are ready to build, but we must ensure that, in the urgency to deliver, we do not compromise on the quality of these homes. As the Public Accounts Committee reported last year in the “Planning and the broken housing market” report, the standard of many new developments does not reach acceptable levels, with insufficient funding for their infrastructure. That is why these measures need to be underpinned by statute. With such a building boom planned, it is essential that we create the mandate to ensure the necessary infrastructure of our homes. Importantly, because the Government intend to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, they must address the 15% of greenhouse gas emissions that currently come from the residential sector.
In the first part of my Bill, I propose that all new homes should be full-fibre broadband connected. Historically, all new developments have been connected through a full-copper, part-copper or part-fibre connection. However, full fibre is 20 times faster than existing superfast broadband services and capable of download speeds of over 1 gigabit per second. If we had any doubt about the importance of reliable ultrafast broadband connectivity to new homes in Britain, the current covid crisis has surely dispelled that. Investment to install full fibre to the home will generate real and rapid benefits, helping communities to recover from the pandemic, and that is why it is so important that we underpin by statute full fibre across all our new homes. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who is sitting next to me, says that if we did that in statute, we could then enforce it through the planning system.
I welcome the steps being taken by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to ensure that new homes are built with support for full-fibre and gigabit-speed broadband. With digital connectivity now underpinning so many different facets of our modern life, future-proofing our homes has never been more important. Full fibre will affect not just how we work but where we work. According to Openreach, as many as 400,000 additional people could choose to work remotely, opening up employment opportunities outside London and the south-east. Home working has become a new way of life in the Cotswolds, as it has in many parts of the country, with almost half of UK workers doing so, according to recent Office for National Statistics figures. We are rapidly consuming more detail, and our future economic growth and connectivity will be based on having excellent broadband infrastructure. According to research published in October 2019 by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, full-fibre broadband connectivity could boost labour productivity by nearly £59 billionby 2025.