As Labour plans to build 1.5m homes, here’s how to ensure they are fit for the future

The new Government has pledged to ‘get Britain building’; but the question I have been asking myself is ‘building what?’ With the Government setting itself the ambitious target of building 1.5 million new homes over the next 5 years, we need to know: will these homes be fit for the future? The upcoming publication of the ‘future housing standards’ is the opportunity to ensure that they are.

Warm words, warm homes?

There have been some warm words from the Government on environmental building standards in its first months. There has not, however, been anything specific. That is why, early in September, I secured a Westminster Hall debate on environmental standards for new housing. This is a critical issue for the new Government to address for three reasons.

Firstly, the Government wants to build 1.5 million new homes over the next Parliament. If there were ever a good time to establish new environmental building standards, it is now.

Secondly, the scale of the issue is enormous. Domestic housing accounted for more than a quarter of energy use in the UK in the last year for which we have statistics, while heating accounts for the largest single share of emissions from buildings. The Government is making good moves towards decarbonising power generation, but to reach our climate targets it must also address the environmental impact of housing.

Thirdly, building homes to the highest environmental standards is a win-win-win, resulting in reduced carbon emissions; warm homes that are affordable to heat; and thousands of new skilled jobs boosting our economy across the country. It’s a no-brainer.

So, what does the Government need to do?

5 key areas

There are five key areas the Government needs to cover to ensure new homes are fit for the future. The first is energy efficiency. While many more homes are now reaching the EPC C standard of energy efficiency, almost no new homes are being built to the highest standards of A or B. For the Government to hit its own carbon targets, that has got to change. The Government should create a glide path for industry to build net zero homes as soon as possible.

The second area is embodied carbon – that is, the carbon emissions resulting from the materials used in construction. These can account for a significant proportion of a building’s carbon emissions over its whole life, but so far “policy has focused entirely on operational emissions”, to quote a 2022 Environmental Audit Committee report. The new Government should correct this, by including embodied carbon in the future homes standard.

The third area is on-site energy generation – i.e. requiring rooftop solar panels as standard. This is an incredibly popular policy, one that people on the doorstep often raise with me. There have been reports that Labour will not include this as a requirement in the future homes standard, perhaps ceding to industry’s desires to reduce short-term costs at the expense of the long-term benefit of reduced running costs for residents. This would be a gross mistake.

The fourth area is maximising biodiversity in the construction of new homes. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries, and people are right to be concerned about the impact of construction on our precious natural environment. So let’s build homes that make space for nature. A classic example, and a personal favourite, is swift bricks. For just £30, every new home for us could also be a new home for a beautiful, iconic species, whose population has sadly declined by 60% in the last 30 years.

The fifth area is maximising resilience in new housing. Climate change is bringing more extreme weather. We have seen the impact in record flooding and record temperatures. To future proof homes, the future homes standard must take into account these two threats, and cover the risk of flooding and overheating in resilience planning of new housing.

Better late than never

This is not a new topic. In fact, it is one that Labour are very familiar with. Back in 2006, the last Labour Government said that they would amend the building regulations to require all new homes to have net zero carbon emissions by 2016. Of course, that policy was scrapped by the Conservatives in 2015, but we are now eight years on from the point at which Labour previously thought that all new homes should be net zero carbon. This is the moment for the new Labour Government to fulfil that promise, and go further, to ensure all new homes are fit for the future – better late than never.