Infrastructure Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Deben and Baroness Maddock
Baroness Maddock (LD)
My Lords, I add my support to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in trying to get energy efficiency as part of our infrastructure plans. I am also very pleased to support my noble friend Lord Jenkin. Interestingly, I also knew of the quote from the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, and, if he had not used it, I would have done.
I realise that it is always difficult for a Minister to accept anything and I am not really expecting the noble Baroness to do that today, but in the light of what has been said it is important that she can confirm that she will talk very seriously about this to her colleagues. It is clear that she has other ministerial support—it is not just coming from the people talking here in Committee. So I hope that she can do that.
I am particularly concerned, coming from the north-east, for the job creation opportunities of energy efficiency. We have already seen it happening there. One problem is that the economy may be booming in the south-east but it has not been booming quite so much in the north-east. This is one area in which we do quite well and, if the Government take this seriously, we can do even better.
I have one little point to make on a comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, about the energy efficiency of this building. In the Royal Gallery there is a display about the works that they are doing in the Houses of Parliament. I noticed just this morning that in renewing the iron roofs they are putting in insulation.
I support what has been said in general and urge the Minister to take this seriously and perhaps come back on Report with something that we can all support.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for missing the first minute of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. I support the amendment. It has always seemed to me that there is a need to find a way in which to make energy efficiency more attractive to politicians, and I think that the noble Lord may have discovered that mechanism. The trouble with politicians is that they like boys’ toys, and it is always better to build something big that you can point to, so that in your dotage—which of course none of us is anywhere near—you can say to your great-grandchildren, “I built that great monstrosity there; it was one of the reasons why I felt that I had done something”. I fear that that is quite deep in the psyche of politicians. It is always easier to build or make something and then to have something to point to. Very often, those are important activities, but it always means that energy efficiency is at the bottom of the pile.
When I was the Minister responsible in the Department of the Environment, there was a tendency to ensure that those who dealt with energy efficiency were perhaps not the most exciting of people—not perhaps as thrusting or pressing as those who dealt with the big projects. I am sure that that is no longer true and that now we have people of immense thrust, but it is important to give them some help and support. This amendment does that.
We have had today the welcome decision by the Government that the Committee on Climate Change was indeed right to say that there is no basis for changing the fourth carbon budget. So we know what we have to meet. In that circumstance, energy efficiency is a crucial part. Members of the Committee should refer to the document that the climate change committee presented to Parliament only last week—I declare an interest as its chairman. It is interesting that when we produced our review of climate change action over the past five years—it also looks forward—no one from the global warming body that opposes these things was present. Nobody was there to find out the facts. Nobody bothered to turn up. It is worth saying as often as possible that those who deny climate change or dismiss its importance rarely appear to listen to the facts. In that document we make it clear that in fact the Government have so far, with their partners, met their targets. That of course has been helped, if that is the right word, by the recession. Again, we should congratulate the Government on saying that they are not going to take advantage of that additional success by reducing the requirement in successive carbon budgets.
It is a good idea to say when Governments get things right, particularly if one is going to say something about getting it wrong. The bit they have got wrong is that we have not got the energy efficiency operation anywhere near where it has to be if we are to meet our budget. As my noble friend Lady Maddock rightly said, the Minister will find it difficult to accept this amendment here and now. However, perhaps I may end by saying why I hope she will make sure that it is accepted before the Bill is passed. By making the amendment part of our infrastructure programme, we give to it precisely that attraction—the big picture—which it lacks if we are talking about a whole series of small things, which is the point that my noble friend Lord Jenkin made and which the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, himself made in his recent intervention.
I very much hope, therefore, that my noble friend will accept that this issue is crucial to meeting our carbon budgets. Those budgets have been reaffirmed today. Would it not be a good thing to celebrate that reaffirmation by accepting in principle, if not in practice at this moment, that the amendment should be part of the Bill?
Energy Bill
Debate between Lord Deben and Baroness Maddock
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, I thank the Minister for responding so quickly to our pleas last week about fuel poverty. I welcome what we have before us today. I think it is quite clear, as my noble friend Lord Jenkin said, that unless we understand the problem properly we cannot design effective solutions for it. I am particularly grateful to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, Ed Davey, for pushing this within the coalition, and I am grateful that he has managed to move it forward. My noble friend Lord Deben talked about “may” and “must”: I think the answer is that my right honourable friend managed to persuade them on one issue, but not on the other.
Baroness Maddock
So we must help him to persuade others on the other issue, the decarbonisation target.
I will try not to be repetitive, because I agree with many of the things already said. I particularly welcome the fact that we are going to be monitoring things as they go along, that there will not just be an end target but targets in between, and we will see what is going on. The Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000, and the Home Energy Conservation Act before it, were both Private Members’ Bills. One of the problems with Private Members’ Bills is that they are not actually owned by the Government, and so they were not part of a big department getting together and putting legislation forward. Both those Bills suffered from that, because in many ways they were allowed to just drift along. That is a slight exaggeration, but the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000, my own Act, drifted so much so that at the end the previous Government wanted to get rid of it completely. When the coalition Government came in—it was one in, one out—they thought it was ripe for the picking. We pointed out that you need that Bill if you are really into localism and are going to use local authorities—another thing I welcome in this regard. Maybe we will do a little better this time, because this has been an important piece of work done by a government department.
I commend to noble Lords the White Paper, Fuel Poverty: a Framework for Future Action. It will help people who have already contacted us because they were worried about one or two items that the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, pointed out. It will answer some of their questions. This is not the final document and strategy. A more detailed strategy will come after the Bill has passed into law, so that we can co-ordinate it properly.
I will highlight one or two things. Everybody has talked about properties that are difficult to deal with for various technical reasons, but something that has always bothered me is that a large number of the fuel poor live in the private rented sector. Many things that we are trying to do are much harder to do in the private rented sector. I hope that, when the final strategy comes out, we can do something about that.
Some concerns that people have raised include the fact that we are changing the definition, and that it will be in secondary legislation. However, my experience of definitions being in primary legislation, in particular in the two Private Members’ Bills that became Acts that I talked about, was that it did not make any difference. Even though the target was in primary legislation, it seems that we are not going to hit it, so we have had to do something else. Therefore, history shows that that is not the total answer.
Many people who contacted us were worried about what the priorities and target dates will be. I hope that, as the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, said, we will be able to look into that before Report. Clearly, a lot of detail will be in the final strategy, and we will be able to make our suggestions.
Another area that has been mentioned is how we will pay for this and how we can stop putting extra burdens on the fuel poor when we are trying to deal with climate change and decarbonisation. The document indicates that the Government are acutely aware of the issue, and that we need to look at how to deal with it. Perhaps my noble friend will be able to indicate some of the forward thinking on the issues that I have raised.
The other area that I particularly welcome is the commitment to much more cross-departmental working. That may be something we will touch on when we debate the next amendment about something else. We hear this phrase time and time again, but it does not always happen. Somewhere in the document it says that the Government will set up a body to work across departments. That has been tried in the past and has not been terribly successful.
I will touch on one issue mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, who talked about dealing with streets. One thing that has been discovered by those looking at who is fuel poor is that quite often they are peppered around streets. If you are trying to target your money at the fuel poor, sometimes you do not succeed if you take whole streets. This is not a worry with decarbonising, but trying to make money go around for the fuel poor is complicated. This is slightly disappointing, because it was talked about in the context of the Home Energy Conservation Act.
I will touch briefly on rural areas, to which my noble friend Lord Deben referred. As noble Lords know, I live in north Northumberland, which I think is even more rural than where my noble friend lives.
Baroness Maddock
Perhaps through e-mails.
Our problem is that a lot of properties are farm cottages. I go back to my worry about the private rented sector. My husband is an MP there and sees a lot of tenants. The farm cottages are often in the private rented sector because there are not as many farm workers. Trying to tailor all the programmes to do something to these properties, and in particular to get the landlords to do something, is very difficult. I have gone full circle and come round to the private rented sector, which I hope we will deal with.
I am pleased that the Committee has, within days, got something in response to our pleas last week. I thank the Minister for introducing the amendment.
Energy Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Deben and Baroness Maddock(13 years, 11 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, further to my noble friend’s comment about the record of the private rented sector in this area, he is absolutely right that we have not seen its efforts in any great quantity. However, I remind him that one or two schemes got grants under the Home Energy Conservation Act. If he cares to look back, I am sure that the Energy Saving Trust has records of the one or two schemes that were quite successful. Unfortunately, nobody ever looked at the statistics to see how those schemes might be grown in the rest of the country, but that is history. I also remember that one very good scheme was initiated by Westminster City Council.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I just hope that we do not underestimate the big role that the British Property Federation and others ought to have in making sure that information about the measures reaches both those who rent and those who let property. I am a little unhappy about the pressure from the British Property Federation. Having been involved in property and in writing about it all my life, I rather think that, despite the efforts that are being made to suggest that somebody else ought to provide the information, those who let property ought to do that. In addition, if there is a problem from the private sector, the British Property Federation and others could certainly take that up.
When the Minister replies, I hope that he will accept that it is not just for the Government to tell people of the advantages available to them; the first people who ought to do that should be those who have the interests of the landlords—and, I hope, the tenants—in mind. It would be a pity if we suggested that that was not a proper role for the industry to take on its shoulders. If this were something that was hurting the industry, the various organisations would be the first to make sure that everyone knew about it. Therefore, I find this whole pressure a bit odd. I hope that your Lordships will not move us towards a position that will underestimate or remove the important role that the organisations should take.