This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Gas hobs or boilers should be banned from being installed in new homes within the next six years, government advisers have recommended.

A report by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) says that from 2025 at the latest, no new homes should be connected to the gas grid – with super-efficient houses and flats heated using low-carbon energy instead.

It also warns that UK homes are not fit for the future, with efforts to cut greenhouse gases from housing stalling and properties at growing risk of overheating and flooding.

The committee called on the government to get serious about tackling emissions from homes and ensuring they are adapted to cope with a future of more extreme weather.

The way new homes are built and existing properties are “retrofitted” with energy efficiency measures often falls short of stated design standards, deceiving householders and inflicting costs on the future, the committee said.

Closing the “performance gap” between design standards and what is achieved could save those in new homes between £70 and £260 a year on their energy bills, the report said.

Cash-strapped councils need better funding to help enforce building standards and there should be stiffer penalties for non-compliance, it said. The Treasury should support, as a “major infrastructure priority”, measures in existing homes to install low-carbon heating such as heat pumps, loft and wall insulation, and protection for properties at risk of flooding.

Support is also needed to train designers, builders and installers of climate-friendly technology to address the low-carbon skills gap and create green jobs.

Baroness Brown, the chair of the CCC’s adaptation subcommittee, said: “There are almost 30m homes in the UK, and the depressing fact is most of them are not in a condition to keep us comfortable and productive and well as the climate changes.

“They are a huge part of the problem – energy use in our homes is around a fifth of greenhouse gases, and the biggest part of those emissions is from burning gas for heating and hot water.”

A government committed to meeting climate targets, which require net zero emissions to curb rising temperatures, “has to get serious about this” she said.

Brown suggested the government should be demanding much higher standards through measures to encourage building 300,000 new homes a year.

“We shouldn’t be allowing 300,000 substandard homes that will need upgrading to be built, they should be built to the right standard now,” she said.

“We could tell house builders who are making a lot of money from help to buy that it’s only available for homes of a really high quality.”

A government spokesman said it would carefully consider the recommendations, adding: “The UK has reduced emissions faster than any other G7 nation, and moving to a greener, cleaner economy while continuing to grow the economy is at the heart of our modern industrial strategy.

“Over the next 10 years, we have committed to drive £6bn to improve the energy efficiency of lower income and vulnerable households.”