(4 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberSometimes the answer is slightly amusing, I am afraid. In answer to the question about how many such meters exist, out of the current 19.3 million the figure is way too high at 3.1 million. So, moving from SMETS 1 meters, which were the first installed meters, to SMETS 2 is a priority in those areas, and, going forward, the rollout of the second generation, not the first generation, is critical. The key thing, again, is that we are making that progress and we have the commitments to deliver against the targets.
I hope that my noble friend is not losing too much sleep over this, because the prefix “smart”, as far as government policy is concerned, is being questioned across the nation. For example, on reading meters, if we have not educated the last three generations to be able to do a simple multiplication calculation to work out what something times something will mean every quarter, we have seriously failed. Does my noble friend agree that, if people do not understand that to save electricity and gas in their household they simply have to wash on low temperatures and turn the light off when they leave the room, the better policy would have been to have installed slot meters? There is nothing like that to concentrate the mind if you think the electricity is going to go off.
Yes, I agree with all of those things. The smart meter gives you a very visual sign of what you are consuming, and it should be able to highlight when you are consuming at the most expensive part of the day. So, if you are clever and are able to put the two things together, you can reach the point where you make savings as well as reducing carbon emissions.
(13 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton, not just for opening the debate in such a splendid way but for bringing it to the Floor of your Lordships’ House today. She mentioned the 1990 UN Conference on Women, which I was very privileged to attend as government co-chairman of the Women’s National Commission. It is worth reflecting that although that was just 16 years ago, much of the debate at that time was around the fate of the girl child, recognising that in some parts of the world simply to be born female was almost an automatic death sentence. We might feel 16 years later that we have moved on, and in many ways we have. Looking at the Government’s programme on UK aid over the next four years, which other contributors have mentioned today, it is very encouraging to see that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has the theme of the needs of girls and women going through that document and statement. Others have mentioned individual parts of it—the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, mentioned it in her remarks. I was pleased to see that the Government intend to focus on issues such as the number of women whose lives are lost, some at a very early age through pregnancy and childbirth.
We have been fortunate in this country in successive Secretaries of State at DfID who have grasped the agenda and kept the focus. The Government have set priorities for women’s health, for example. Women need to be assisted to become more economically able through programmes that sometimes seem to us in the West rather small steps, such as allowing and enabling women to set up very small-scale businesses through which they can sell some of what they produce to get them out of the downward cycle that ultimately for many leads to ill health for them and their families, and all too often death. These are big issues. In some ways they make the needs that we try to fight for as women in this country almost insignificant when we are still talking of so many millions of people, particularly women and children, for whom every day is a battle for life or death in one way or another.
Having set that down as my opening remarks, I will move on to some domestic agendas. I say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that coming out of the UN Conference on Women was something that we described back in 1995 as the mainstreaming of issues for women through government departments. I would like her to take that on board. I am sad that the Government have decided that the Women’s National Commission should be abolished, and I hope that they will reflect on that. I also hope that my noble friend will take back to the Government what has happened to the the need that was identified in 1995 to look at every policy that a Government produce and ask how it impacts on women. To benchmark women is not an expensive exercise; it does not need a big budget, just a change of practice. All government departments would benefit from reintroducing that and making sure that it works.
Having represented a very rural seat—sadly no longer there—in the heart of God’s own county, Devon, for many years, I am familiar with the needs of women in rural communities. Many of the issues that I hope will be at the top of the Government’s priority list domestically are domestic violence and the difficulties of women, particularly in remote rural areas where they do not take their part in society even now, as many of us are able to do. Rural isolation is a big problem for many, particularly women. If you live in a very remote farmhouse that is accessible only by private transport and you are the victim of domestic violence, it is difficult to get out of the house and seek help, even if you are strong enough to do that. I hope that the Government will take on board the need to identify those women in their locations and that they will benchmark that in the way in which they have given priority to overseas aid.