What minimum requirements her Department stipulates for the energy efficiency of new and refurbished homes.

New standards for building regulations were introduced in April last year. They require a 40 per cent. improvement in energy efficiency, compared to 2002. However, we need to go further, and we are consulting on a timetable for significant increases in compulsory energy efficiency measures for new homes, so that all new homes can be zero carbon within 10 years.

I thank my hon. Friend for the work that she is doing to ratchet up energy efficiency standards, but may I ask her to address the second part of my question, which is about existing homes? In Birmingham, 35,000 homes in the private sector, and more than half of council homes, do not even meet the decent homes standard, which is a very low standard. What is she doing to improve the energy efficiency of existing homes, particularly those occupied by people on low incomes?

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and it is certainly true that existing homes make up the vast Majority of the stock. We already support grants and assistance for people, including through the energy efficiency commitment provided by energy companies, but more work needs to be done as part of the decent homes programme, and through the introduction of energy performance certificates, which we strongly support, but which, unfortunately, Opposition Members do not.

Does the Minister agree that there is no point in having high standards for new homes if those standards are not enforced? Does she share my concern that between a third and 40 per cent. of homes built are reported to fail to meet current standards, and what steps will she take to ensure that those standards are enforced?

The issue of enforcement is important, and that is why we have introduced pressure testing as part of the new standards introduced last year. The standards that were in place before April last year were not sufficiently well enforced, and we have been working on a major training programme to increase enforcement and ensure that the current standards are properly implemented.

I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that we can tackle the issue of energy efficiency in new homes through building regulations, but it is important that we have a policy to deal with energy efficiency in existing houses. By including energy efficiency certificates as part of home information packs, are the Government not demonstrating that those certificates are a vehicle through which we can try to raise public awareness of existing energy-efficient homes across the board? If the Government, while pretending to be green, rejected a measure as modest as making energy certificates part of home information packs, that commitment to being green and to tackling climate change would be nothing more than skin deep.

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Energy performance certificates can make a significant difference, particularly if they are linked to new programmes, such as those involving green mortgages and other kinds of grants for home owners. He will know that the measure has been strongly supported by WWF, Friends of the Earth, the Campaign to Protect Rural England and a range of environmental groups; they are strongly saying to us that it would be a travesty if energy performance certificates were to be delayed.

The Minister knows that the Conservative party—and, for that matter, the Liberal Democrats—is entirely behind energy performance certificates. It is because we take energy efficiency so seriously that we were scandalised to read on Sunday that there is not a single accredited domestic energy assessor available in the United Kingdom. Figures released by the DCLG on Friday reveal that there is not a single accredited assessor in place. A year ago, we were told that we would need 7,000 inspectors—this month, 2,000—but not a single one is in place. What a fiasco on the Minister's watch.

I have to say that, for all the hon. Gentleman's manufactured indignation, more than 5,500 people have entered training to be energy assessors or home inspectors, and 1,900 have passed their exams. The hon. Gentleman says that he supports energy performance certificates, so I must ask him why he has signed early-day motions 1264 and 1265, which oppose not only home information packs but energy performance certificates for rented buildings, public buildings and homes. WWF has criticised his party for doing so, and that is the group that helped his right hon. Friend Mr. Cameron to travel to the—

Order. I call Mrs. Hodgson.

Is my hon. Friend the Minister aware of the affordable homes that are being built by Ikea in my Constituency? They use sustainable materials and seek to be at least 25 per cent. more energy efficient than the norm. People do not even have to build them themselves. Should councils not follow the example set by Gateshead of backing innovative solutions that produce energy efficiency coupled with affordable housing?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A lot of innovative schemes have been set up across the country. I went to see one in Redditch just a few weeks ago in which people are looking at different ways of constructing homes. We have to recognise that the house-building process must change fundamentally: we must change the way in which we build, heat and power our homes if we are to meet the challenge of climate change. I agree that there is a lot more that local authorities can do to support that process.