Written questions by Kumar.

Whether his Department has made an assessment of the public health impacts of the Warm Homes Plan, especially regarding both indoor and outdoor air quality; and what metrics her Department plans to use to measure success in Dudley constituency.

The Warm Homes Plan will set out a strategy to improve health outcomes through the upgrade of British buildings. This includes measures that mitigate the health risks associated with living in a cold home (such as respiratory disease), exposure to poor air quality as a result of gas boiler emissions, and overheating in hotter months. DESNZ will work with the Department for Health and Social Care, the NHS and local government to promote the delivery of home upgrades that will support vulnerable health groups. Our ambition is to upgrade 5 million homes this parliament, and the success of our programmes will be monitored and evaluated through the collection of scheme data.

What steps his Department plans to take to support green projects in the Black Country.

The Government supports local places to drive action to deliver green projects and help realise our national net zero targets. Great British Energy will partner with community energy groups and local government, including Mayoral Strategic Authorities, to support the development of clean energy projects. Government also funds the Local Net Zero Accelerator pilot programme (including in West Midlands Combined Authority) to test how to support local places to leverage in commercial net zero investment at scale, alongside five Local Net Zero Hubs (including the Midlands Net Zero Hub) to support local government to develop net zero projects and attract commercial investment.

If he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the emissions trading scheme on the clay brick and rooftile industry.

UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) participants, including the clay brick and rooftile sector, are provided with free allocations, reducing their exposure to the carbon price and mitigating their risk of carbon leakage whilst continuing to provide an incentive to decarbonise at the least cost route. This approach is currently being reviewed to ensure we can better target support for sectors most at risk of carbon leakage. We are very mindful of the impact of the ETS on industrial participants, and have committed to an ongoing assessment of the scheme’s effectiveness – outputs of this review will be published in 2026. Interim outcomes of this review can be found on gov.uk.

When her Department will publish the response to the consultation entitled Extending the UK Emissions Trading Scheme cap beyond 2030.

The UK ETS Authority, the joint governance body comprising of the UK Government, Welsh Government, Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive, is grateful for the range of stakeholder responses to the Extending the UK ETS cap beyond 2030 consultation. The Authority recognises the importance of providing certainty and clarity on the scheme that is a cornerstone of its economy-wide approach to decarbonising the whole of the UK. A response to the consultation, outlining the Authority’s decisions, will be published as soon as possible.