Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

Net Zero Goals: Local Authorities

Tuesday 23 May 2023 · 3 questions

Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.

Read the full transcript on Parliament.uk

At a glance

Answered 1 Partly answered 2 Not answered 0

Key points

  • Government invests 5 million a year in the local net zero hub programme.
  • Government established the UK Infrastructure Bank with 12 billion of capital to address climate change and levelling up.
  • Government plans to implement a connections plan later in the year to address delays in grid connections due to speculative applications.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 Matthew Offord Con
Economy Local Government Environment
Context

The National Audit Office informed that central government has not developed clear expectations for local authority roles in achieving net zero, with inconsistent reporting making it hard to measure progress. There is also a lack of assessment on the totality of funding provided by central government and the nature of grant funding.

Question

Local authorities have an overwhelming role in achieving net zero, but central Government has not developed overall expectations about local authority roles, leading to inconsistent reporting. Neither the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities nor the Treasury has assessed the totality of funding for local authorities to achieve net zero. Will the Minister carry out an analysis of local authority funding for net zero to inform the next comprehensive spending review?

Answer from Graham Stuart

The Government invest £5 million a year in the local net zero hub programme. We are looking at other ways of enabling and encouraging local authorities to do more.

Partly answered

Not addressed: An analysis of local authority funding for net zero to inform the next comprehensive spending review was not explicitly addressed.

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Q2 Matthew Offord Con
Economy Local Government Environment
Context

The National Audit Office informed that central government has not developed clear expectations for local authority roles in achieving net zero, with inconsistent reporting making it hard to measure progress. There is also a lack of assessment on the totality of funding provided by central government and the nature of grant funding.

Question

Local authorities have an overwhelming role in achieving net zero, but central Government has not developed overall expectations about local authority roles, leading to inconsistent reporting. Neither the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities nor the Treasury has assessed the totality of funding for local authorities to achieve net zero. Will the Minister carry out an analysis of local authority funding for net zero to inform the next comprehensive spending review?

Answer from Graham Stuart

The Government invest £5 million a year in the local net zero hub programme. We have established the UK Infrastructure Bank, with an initial £12 billion of capital, for the twin goals of tackling climate change and levelling up, and it includes a specific loan facility for local government to deliver net zero.

Partly answered

Not addressed: Setting up a review to assess funding use and working with local authorities on skills gaps was not directly addressed.

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Q3 Hilary Benn Lab Leeds South
Climate Energy
Context

The Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee highlighted a problem with speculative applications for grid connections, which do not yet have planning permission and often never get it. These are clogging up the queuing system, posing risks to achieving net zero.

Question

One risk to net zero is the delay in grid connections due to speculative applications without planning permission that clog the queue but never get approval. What can be done to fix this issue?

Answer from Graham Stuart

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; Nick Winser is working on the transmission system and will report next month. We are coming up with a connections plan later this year to work with Ofgem, making sure that projects clogging the queue but not delivered get weeded out, while ensuring deliverable projects get prioritised.

Answered

Not addressed: null

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