9. Short Debate: Getting smart with fuel poverty

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:58 pm on 14 February 2018.

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Photo of David Melding David Melding Conservative 6:58, 14 February 2018

I'm very grateful to Mark Isherwood for giving me a minute. I just want to focus on the potential we have to drive even more change through social housing. There's already good, indeed best, practice, emerging in this sector, because they can build at scale. So, we can be looking at homes that potentially generate more energy than they consume. That ends fuel poverty in those homes. It's astonishing. That achievement is now on our doorstep, if I can use an appropriate term. We need to develop a market for these standards in terms of social homes and building off site and modular building. These things are often very viable in terms of using the latest materials for maximum fuel efficiency. So, we're already seeing some good progress in terms of what the social housing sector can do for us. I want to see more of that so that we drive change and then it spreads out in terms of the general housing market, but also in terms of what housing associations can do for retrofitting and then developing and helping develop a more extensive market there, because what Mark has said is right—we're not going to achieve our target to eliminate fuel poverty, so I think we need to look to set a new one and to eliminate it as soon as possible, but drive forward with the necessary expenditures in our programme, because it will bring immense benefit to so many people, because living in a cold home is really bad for you.