To ask the Minister of Finance what plans he has to use his power regarding building regulations to achieve the aim of zero carbon buildings.

Mr Murphy

My Department has prepared an ambitious draft programme of phased uplifts to the energy efficiency requirements of building regulations for inclusion in the Executive's forthcoming energy strategy options consultation. We will refine that further and consult as appropriate as part of our ongoing work. Officials are focused on an urgent uplift to the current requirements for new buildings, which we plan to bring forward within this Executive period, if possible. Officials are engaging with the Department's building regulations advisory committee and its specialist subcommittees on the details. Further uplifts will take into account technological advances and policy developments in other regions over the coming years. It seems likely that revisions made after 2025 will anticipate that all new buildings will routinely have very high building fabric standards and low-carbon heating.

Mr Murphy

The responsibility for those matters rests across a range of Departments. Although there may be some merit in having a discussion on having a single home for all of them, it would be very difficult to extract from various Departments the associated responsibility. There is an urgency in trying to do this. I have brought propositions to the Executive to try to get an agreement, under the head of the Civil Service, across all Departments on where each responsibility lies and on a coordination function. I have also said that, if there were a retrofit-type scheme to address some of the issues that arose from that, I would be very happy to look at that proposition. We want to ensure that the proper degree of coordination across all Departments and all those responsibilities is brought to bear in these matters. Given the experience that he referred to, these are very serious issues, and they need to be addressed urgently.

Dr Archibald

Will the Minister, following on from Mr Muir's question, provide an update on the progress being made on the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower inquiry?

Mr Murphy

We will have to be cognisant of that and look at the recommendations that come from it. Some proposals have already been developed to look at buildings across Britain, and we have looked at whether Barnett consequentials will flow from that. Clearly, there are very serious issues with building materials and with the approach to and verification of testing. A wide range of serious issues throws up questions for a range of Departments here. As I said, one of the difficulties is that the responsibility for various aspects of this lies across a range of Departments. We need to ensure that we coordinate as best we can across those Departments. We need a central authority to ensure that that coordination works and that all the component parts play their part and are resourced to do so, so that we do not have any such tragedy here.

Miss Woods

Has the Minister or his Department considered the 'Energy Governance for the Northern Ireland Energy Transition' research report, which was commissioned by the Northern Ireland Executive? What is his position on the recommendation that a new Department for Climate and Energy Transition be set up?

Mr Murphy

I have not considered the report. Given the position of our Budget for next year, starting a completely new Department would probably be challenging and involve more resource than the Executive have. Arguments around setting up a completely new Department probably fit into the context of a longer-term strategic plan in the time frame of the Programme for Government and a multi-year budget, and I am certainly happy to look at that. Between now and the end of the mandate, with a rollover flat-cash Budget, we want to quickly bring our standards of building up to the highest level of environmental efficiency and other efficiencies. We have acknowledged that we have to catch up. We want to do that as quickly as we possibly can, but, for the longer term, the strategic projects to which the Member refers will more than likely be a matter for an incoming Executive beyond this mandate.