Minister for energy consumers pledges that MHCLG and DESNZ will work to ‘one agenda’

“There is a lot of understanding of the dual challenges we face,” she said.

“I don’t see it as two separate agendas. I see it as one agenda. I think if you start with the household, if you start with the individual in that home, what they care about is raising the standards, raising the quality of the home, delivering upgrades that will reduce bills.”

Taking the impact on the household as a starting point, the question then became how the two departments align their approach, she said.

“One of the things I’m particularly exercised about is, you should only have to put the scaffolding up once. You shouldn’t have to put it up once in order to do work for MHCLG that’s funded by one budget and then again in order to deliver retrofit.

“I think that is where place is really important in our ability to think about how we do the planning. The integration with local authorities, with social housing providers on the ground – there is the opportunity to align those agendas so they aren’t in conflict.”

This could mean increased funding flexibility from both departments “so you can align [funding] to deliver for those households”, she said.

This would be “a shift”, because all parts of the government would be required to “start with the household”, she added.

Ms Fahnbulleh also told delegates that DESNZ was focused on addressing skills shortages that could impede its delivery plans. Inside Housing has been campaigning to flag and address skills shortages across the sector in its Housing Hires campaign.

“We’re reliant on the market in order to deliver the scale of ambition that we want,” she said. A recent report by the National Retrofit Hub found a shocking 66% of employers are struggling to recruit for roles in the net-zero economy.

“That’s why we are providing longer delivery windows for the latest phases of our schemes. And it is why we know there is a body of work that we need to do with local government, with partners on the ground, with industry, with our [further education] colleagues, in order to upskill the installers in the workforce of the future.”

Ms Fahnbulleh added that it was crucial for the UK to “wean ourselves off global fossil fuel markets” and upgrade homes to insulate people from price spikes.

“For three years, since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, families across the country have been suffering from the impacts of energy prices rising because of that dependence on global markets that we cannot control,” she said.

The permanent solution was to “build clean power”, she added.

“So every turbine we build out, every solar panel we put up, helps us get to that sustainable footing. And if we do nothing [else] this parliament, we will break that dependence.”