Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Dixon-Smith and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Monday 20th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I wish to add something to what my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree and the noble Lord, Lord Best, have said. The anxiety is not so much that any Government would be so stupid as to try to repeal essential provisions on welfare of the sort that have aroused some alarm but that this Government might be succeeded by another who are not so keen on the whole process of localism, devolution and subsidiarity and might therefore use the powers in a way that would restrict the general power, which might go contrary to the purposes of this legislation. I declare once again that I am joint president of the London Boroughs Association, which is certainly concerned about this possibility. The chances of any Government wanting to make material inroads into the welfare legislation to which reference has been made, and much of which is in the list in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, are a little unreal. No doubt, however, reassurance will be necessary, and I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will be able to reassure those who have expressed anxieties that that is not the intention.

As I understand it, the purpose of this clause—the whole of the purpose of the power that is given—is simply to enable a local authority to exercise its general power of competence. If there are obstacles in previous legislation that prevent that, or if there is overlap, then to that extent the order may then remove the obstacle. It cannot just sweep away whole legislation; as I understand it, the provision in question has to be specifically related to the general power. I have had a lot of representations as well, and it is right that these fears should be aired on the Floor of the House so that reassurances can be given. However, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, made the point that there is a distinction between the clauses as to whether the resolution is affirmative or negative.

I have two things to say. The first is that if the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments makes a recommendation—I, too, read the wording that the committee recommends strongly that it should all be affirmative—it would be very unusual indeed for a Minister not to accept it. I have been through a number of Bills, most recently the Energy Bill, where that has been accepted. The whole range of recommendations was accepted, and government amendments were put down to achieve that. The second point is that if you have sufficient parliamentary supervision, that should be a sufficient assurance of protection. The power is necessary if you are going to make a reality of the general power of competence but it has to be defined, as I think it is intended to be, and it has to be subject to affirmative resolutions as recommended by the Joint Committee.

[Lord Dixon-Smith]

My Lords, I had not intended to intervene but I am tempted because I need to ask the Minister one question: could this subsection not be used by some other Secretary of State at some point in future to amend this legislation because it has a power in it to which he or she objects?

Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Dixon-Smith and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I had hoped that the noble Lord would have given some indication of the range of improvements and benefits that might be available under the Green Deal. It seems to me that, if one were to list the entire range, including appliances and all the other things that now qualify under the Green Deal, that could in many cases be misleading to a householder, as it might be that only two or three of them could possibly be relevant to his or her house. I just wonder what the purpose is of listing the whole lot if inevitably the assessment will be that, within the price and given the nature of the building concerned, numbers 1, 2 and 3 are really the only ones that will be applicable. What is the purpose of listing, as the amendment suggests in the second subsection, all energy efficiency measures, if most of them might not apply to that house?

[Lord Dixon-Smith]

Following a slightly similar line of thought, but not exactly the same one, I think that, if you are going to have people in undertaking works to improve the energy efficiency of your building and you are able to do works outwith the scheme, why should that not all be done at the same time? I would hope that the Green Deal might set a minimum standard and a financial limit of the funding available and that, within that financial limit, as much work as the individual owner and improver wishes to undertake can be undertaken. After all, it is a financing arrangement that we are talking about; if the property owner or housing association or whatever wants to go the whole hog and really do the whole job, I do not see that the upper limit matters. What we want is the security of a scheme and it must have a minimum standard. We do not need the rest of it, so I think that the idea of listing it all is completely unnecessary. The only thing that needs to be totally determined is the minimum standard. After that, let it rip.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

Another difficulty, which I referred to in our previous sitting, is that the householder faces a choice—whether to have a warmer home or lower bills. It will be difficult for anybody to estimate what the bills will be if the consumer decides that they have been cold and that they want the temperature to be a couple of degrees higher in their house. The problem is in quantifying. I totally support this whole proposal, but one has to make sure that it is realistic and workable. The noble Lord suggested an estimated range, making it clear that the estimate depends on whether the householder wants a warmer house. In many cases, one of the best things to do is to wear another layer of clothes. My granddaughter shares a flat. She is a sensible girl but one of her flatmates is not and their bills are higher because the flatmate chooses to wear pretty skimpy clothes. One has to take account of these human foibles.

[Lord Dixon-Smith]

Perhaps I could intervene as well at this point. This illustrates the classic difficulty of legislating in a way that is dependent on regulations, which we cannot possibly see at this stage. A critical issue is whether the Green Deal has a fixed rate of interest. Each individual deal must be based on a fixed interest. If the system fails to have a fixed rate of interest, a deal may show a clear saving when it is begun—particularly because interest rates are low and one could probably get financing for this sort of thing at 3 or 4 per cent—but, if interest rates rise to 5 per cent and the borrowing rate goes up to 8 per cent, that could completely take out the effect of the savings over a period of time. There is a real issue, which comes back to the fact that we are, as with all legislation of this sort, flying blind. We need to think seriously about interest rates. If the deals vary with interest rates, their attractiveness will be considerably eroded.