Climate Emergency

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:48 pm on 17 July 2019.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:48, 17 July 2019

As I say, we are about to review part L of the building regulations. A lot of things have changed in the last several years around the materials that are available in order to achieve energy efficiency, and there are other issues around the climate emergency, actually, that are really interesting, because one of the biggest issues for Welsh houses now is not heating, it's cooling. So, actually, strengthening the building regulations at this point in time, we are able to take cognisance of technology that hasn't existed other than in the last few months around making sure that your home is both cool and hot. I'm sure, Llywydd, we all welcome the pleasant weather we've been having, recently, but a number of people will now be cooling their homes all night as well as heating them, and the energy inefficiency of that is something we very much need to take account of as well. The building regulations are now able to take that into account in their first iteration in 2020, but there will also be futureproofing in there so that, as technology changes, we'll be able to keep the building regulations up to date with the latest technology without having to redo the entire process.