Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hunt of Chesterton and Baroness Noakes

Monday 17th January 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Noakes]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, prompts me to rise in respect of some of the amendments tabled in the names of his colleagues on the opposition Front Bench—namely the may/shall amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, and I have done many may/shall amendments over the years together and I remember enjoying every single one of them.

The noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, says that the 101 rule of amendments is to table the may/shall amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, and I have done many may/shall amendments over the years together and I remember enjoying every single one of them. The noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, says that the 101 rule of amendments is to table a may/shall amendment. I am afraid the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, are going to have to go back to school and retake 101, because the modern formulation is “must”. Noble Lords will find that that is what parliamentary draftsmen now use, and it is used in this Bill. I am afraid that noble Lords opposite have been producing amendments from another era, and I think that they can try a little harder. However, I would like to raise a more substantive point, if I may come to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, which is clearly extremely well intentioned. I have a slight concern about requiring Green Deal installers to fit any particular kind of alarm. I have every sympathy with requiring them to make that available if the person entering the Green Deal wants it, and indeed possibly other things like smoke detector alarms to the extent that they are not already fitted in the property. However, I do have a concern about absolutely requiring the installation as part of a Green Deal package. I think that it would fit better if it was an optional extra, which gives an opportunity for that to be plugged.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

Picking up on the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, made, she used the word “ventilation”. I keep looking through the Bill to see where the word “ventilation” is. I made this point on Second Reading. It is really important that when you are considering the energy of a house, you consider ventilation. You gain or lose a huge amount of heat in that way. Nobody could possibly have an energy system without that. Obviously, one aspect of ventilation is to do with energy; another aspect is to do with safety, comfort and so on. Some kinds of housing would require new ventilation, and that should be part of the cost. I also raised the point on Second Reading as to whether this could be included as part of the Green Deal funding. From a technical point of view, it seems that it would be very eccentric not to include that, so I hope that that is considered as part of the Bill. It may be that ventilation and safety should be considered in a more general clause.