Air Quality (Domestic Solid Fuels Standards) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 29th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have tried for the last two decades to persuade previous holders of the Minister’s post, and others in various Governments, on this issue. The general drift of these proposals is in the right direction; I have no specific objection to what the Government are proposing, but I fear that they will not achieve everything they intend.

For clarity—from my understanding of what I have read and what the Minister said—there will be no criminalisation of a householder. The seller is the one who will be caught by these regulations. I would like that clarified by the Minister as I have been in many of the households directly affected over the years and I know many affected households. I think it is fair to say that not everybody uses the official market in their supply of heating products, particularly in former coal-mining areas where the tradition of open fires in many households disappeared quite a long time ago. They have something quite antiquated in terms of technology, akin to a wood burner, in which solid fuels such as coal were burned—previously including concessionary coal or any other coal obtained—but where people have now migrated to burning waste and, in particular, burning wood. They get those supplies of wood in many different ways, not always, indeed rarely in my experience, from petrol stations, supermarkets or DIY stores selling it.

I fear that there will be a continuation of the entrepreneurial spirit of the old coal miners. Some of them cannot read all the guidance, in my experience, but if they can they tend not to bother with the fine print. If they cannot buy in a store, they may find a supply elsewhere, which comes to what I have been banging on about to Minister after Minister. I will put it simplistically but, I think, accurately.

What I have said repeatedly is that I can persuade any pensioner household living in an old pit house or bungalow to take green technology if it would give them free energy, if someone would only install it. Some of them will grumble and then sign on the dotted line, while others will openly embrace it. When it came to solar panels, I found that nothing was easier. If it went on the green arguments, we might get into something of a side-tracked debate but if we went into the economic arguments, it was very straightforward: “We’ll stick them on your roof and you’ll get some free energy. How much, we don’t know.” I never used to promise what I was technically incompetent to deliver and had no authority on, but I could guarantee that there would be some considerable savings. That proved always to be the case. It was less so with ground-sourced heat although there remains a huge potential for it, which has hardly been tapped. I can think of some council bungalows near me, where 24 of them were some of the first in the country to be done. I never heard a complaint afterwards because people were getting at least their hot water for free and sometimes more.

There is the idea of retrospectively fixing these old pit houses by doing this, that or the other to make them more environmentally sound. That is true, but proportionately much less so than for other properties. These houses are well built and well insulated. They do not need retrofitting like the new thin-bricked houses. These are solid properties with solid roofs, therefore they self-insulate anyway. We might add a bit extra insulation and have better windows and doors. That is very welcome and would save on their bills.

On the Minister’s strategy, if he could find a way of incentivising getting this green technology installed on houses, particularly for pensioners, then those who have not already will do so. It will get into this small number of the most vulnerable, who are the most fuel-poor. I can hear those who have not done so saying no to me now; if I went to meet them next weekend, they would say the same thing but if it could be installed for free, they will go with it. They are the ones who will continue, one way or the other, in burning whatever they get hold of. Whether it is full of creosote because it is an old railway sleeper or something else industrial, they will source it. They will chop it up, burn it and save money by doing so. The only way that any Government will crack that is by incentivising the putting-in of the green technology.

The Minister has a reputation for being one of the greenest Ministers in our history, which is deserved. This is an opportunity for him to make his mark in areas where his name is perhaps less well known but could become famous, if he can get into these areas of fuel poverty and persuade this tiny but important minority of households, but he is going to have to incentivise it. I would say: make it pensioners only, make it free and get it delivered. The capital cost would be small, but I put it to him that the payback in PR and the real payback for the environment would be hugely disproportionate. These will be the people who carry on burning the stuff the Government do not want them to burn, even if they cannot get it through their usual, traditional suppliers. Let us therefore target them and be adventurous. It would be British technology and British jobs, and the Chancellor and Prime Minister will look favourably on this Minister when it comes to future promotions.