Select committee: Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 20
Fifth Report - Heat resilience and sustainable cooling
Published 31 Jan 2024
Paragraph 99
Environmental Audit Committee Heat resilience and sustainable cooling All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Effective joint working is not just desirable but essential if the impacts of heat are to be tackled in a coordinated, holistic and cost-effective way. This does not seem to be happening to a sufficient degree at present in the UK. The establishment of a Climate Resilience Board, under the auspices of the Cabinet Office and DEFRA, is potentially an important development as long as it includes representation from all relevant Government departments, agencies and other organisations, and meets sufficiently frequently. The Government should set out, in its response to this report, details of the membership of the Climate Resilience Board; how often it has met since being established; and its expected meeting schedule in 2024.
From: Environmental Audit Committee, Fifth Report - Heat resilience and sustainable cooling (HC 279), paragraph 99, 31 January 2024
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 30 April 2024 (deadline 31 March 2024).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the report and sets out its position recommendation by recommendation, declining to mandate use of the Green Infrastructure Framework, to name heatwaves or to run a public information campaign targeting the general public, while pointing to existing measures and consultations.
- On green space, the government "has not chosen to mandate" the Green Infrastructure Framework "at this time", saying it is important to allow local authorities "the space to develop their own policies".
- On heatwave naming, the government says there is "insufficient evidence that naming of heatwaves is effective and there are no plans to introduce heatwave naming"; the Met Office "will keep this under review as research in this area develops".
- On the public information campaign, it says "it is not clear that a public information campaign targeting the general public would be effective" relative to a differentiated approach for those most at risk.
- On a national cooling action plan, it will develop a "cooling outlook document" and is "working to publish" it before the 2026 target date, anticipating publication "in the early part of the next parliament".