Paul Holmes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Jul 2026 · Extreme Heat: Preparedness · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate another valley MP, the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay), on securing this debate. He excellently outlined how many people have been affected by extreme heat over the last few weeks both in a personal capacity and in their work in schools, hospitals or farms. All of us will have had the experience of helping vulnerable groups in our constituencies in the last few months. Just last Saturday, I met an elderly couple with no fans or water who were not in the system. We have all helped vulnerable residents, and I commend everybody in this Chamber for the job that they do. During the hon. Gentleman’s opening speech, I noted that a Doorkeeper was bringing in another fan. The irony of the Doorkeepers wearing very heavy woollen suits was not lost on me. I hope that we think about them as much as everybody else when we talk about the extreme heat.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Extreme Heat: Preparedness · Hansard source

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  I will leave that for the Minister to respond to, but I entirely agree that it is good that the Doorkeepers and House staff who support us so admirably were allowed to have a brief break. I did not manage to get a solar power-produced ice cream, but perhaps I will pop down afterwards. The hon. Members for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) and for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns) said that there had not been enough focus on mitigation over the last few years. They are absolutely correct, but I remind Members that we have seen a 40% reduction in total carbon emissions since 2010 and that the United Kingdom represents only 0.8% of total global emissions. If they had had longer to speak, I know they would have said that we have to tackle this internationally as well as domestically. Last summer was the warmest on record in Britain. The UK Health Security Agency estimates that 1,504 people died as a result of the heat. Behind that figure are families who have lost loved ones. What is particularly striking is that the overwhelming majority were elderly: more than 1,300 of those deaths were among people aged over 75. Fortunately, that number was lower than the more than 3,000 deaths that had been predicted, thanks in part to the successful implementation of the adverse weather and health plan introduced by the previous Government. That demonstrates an important point: preparation saves lives. As our climate changes, extreme heat can no longer be regarded as an exceptional event. It is becoming a recurring feature of British summers, and Government policy must adapt accordingly. Reducing emissions remains important, but adaptation must sit alongside mitigation. We have a duty to ensure that our homes, infrastructure, public services and energy system are capable of coping with the conditions we increasingly face. That begins with protecting the most vulnerable. The Cabinet Office is the lead Government Department for severe weather and has responsibility for identifying those who require particular protection during periods of extreme heat. Last year’s resilience action plan committed the Government to publishing new lead Department expectations and updated guidance to help Departments to identify those who may become vulnerable during emergencies such as heatwaves. Yet a year after those commitments were made, neither of those things appears to have been delivered. Will the Minister explain when those long-promised expectations and updated guidance will finally be delivered? Preparing for emergencies cannot simply be a slogan; it requires effective planning and proper co-ordination across Government. Preparation must also extend to the homes we are building today. Many of those homes will still be occupied at the end of this century, so they should be designed not simply for the climate of the past, but for the hotter summers that experts increasingly expect. In apartments in densely built urban areas or during prolonged periods of extreme heat, opening windows is often ineffective—as the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), outlined from his personal experience—or impractical because of security concerns, pollution or noise. Current building regulations may not explicitly prohibit air-conditioning, but they require developers to exhaust every possible passive cooling measure before mechanical cooling can even be considered. In practice, that has created a system where air-conditioning has become the exception rather than a realistic option. Indeed, there have been cases where families have installed air-conditioning and have been instructed by councils to remove it. At precisely the moment Britain needs to become more resilient to hotter summers, Government policy is too often acting as a barrier to the adoption of technology that could help people remain safe and comfortable. Research suggests that wider use of air-conditioning could reduce heat-associated deaths among those at greatest risk by as much as three quarters. This is not simply a matter of comfort; it is about public health and protecting vulnerable people. It is also about ensuring that children can learn effectively during hot weather, that workers remain productive and that families are able to sleep safely through increasingly warm nights. Britain is increasingly becoming an international outlier. Around 90% of homes in both Japan and the United States have air-conditioning, compared with only 3% to 5% of homes in the United Kingdom. We in the Conservative party have already committed to removing the regulations that effectively discourage air-conditioning in new homes. I asked the Minister whether the Government will now consider doing the same. There is another contradiction in current policy. At the very time that we are discouraging greater use of air-conditioning, consumers are paying billions of pounds in energy bills to compensate renewable generators for switching off when there is excess electricity generation during sunny summer days. Air-conditioning demand rises precisely when solar generation is at its strongest. Rather than paying generators not to generate, surely it makes more sense to allow households to use that electricity to cool their homes. As electricity generation becomes increasingly dependent on intermittent weather conditions, maintaining grid stability becomes ever more challenging. This summer, the National Energy System Operator took the unprecedented step of issuing electricity margin notices following periods when supply became dangerously tight. That should concern every Member of this House.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Extreme Heat: Preparedness · Hansard source

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  It may be quite normal, but it should still concern people that our electricity supply is vulnerable and that we are becoming increasingly dependent on weather conditions. Preparing Britain for a changing climate means much more than setting emissions targets. It means protecting vulnerable people, ensuring that Government Departments are properly prepared, building homes that are fit for hotter summers, embracing practical technologies that improve resilience and maintaining an electricity system that is capable of supporting them. Adaptation is not an alternative to tackling climate change; it is an essential part of responding to it, because whatever path the climate takes over the coming decades—and we all know what path that will be—our responsibility today is to ensure that Britain is ready.