Lord McKenzie of Luton
Main Page: Lord McKenzie of Luton (Labour - Life peer)Infrastructure Bill [HL]
Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts
Baroness Maddock (LD)
My Lords, I strongly support what my noble friend has said about these matters. Can the Minister give us a little more clarity about how we are going to ensure that these changes actually happen? I remember getting terribly excited some years ago about the provision that every new house would have to have a SAP certificate in it. I am forgetting what SAP stands for but it is about the energy efficiency of the house. We passed regulations that said that every new house should have a certificate, but they have never been enforced. If you go into new houses, you will never see one. So when we talk about this, one of my main concerns is: how is it to be regulated?
There is another issue that I have come across. I should declare my interests as a vice-president of the LGA and as president of the Sustainable Energy Association. In my role over the years as a councillor, one problem, particularly when I was in Berwick-upon-Tweed, was that builders would start to build something and then stop. There was nothing we could do to progress it if they did not carry on, so I worry about the abatements. How are we to ensure that they will actually be done? Will there be a timescale? This throws up the problem we have with all this. We are all very keen on it and want it to happen, but most of the detail will be in secondary legislation and regulation. It would be helpful to have indications from the Government about that and to see some of it before we finally pass the Bill.
I am really concerned about how we make sure that it happens. I am told that the building inspectors will of course inspect new buildings. However, supposing that a builder builds a whole block of flats and has not done it properly. What happens to those flats and that builder? If I were doing it, I would quite like to have a few examples of people getting heavy fines if they do not do it in the first place. Again, I do not know how we are going to police that. Regarding the abatement, how are we to ensure that that happens? Will there be a timescale and will people be able to allow that to drift?
I also strongly support my noble friend’s Amendment 93AD, particularly its subsection (d) about community heating. This is a great opportunity to promote community heating and attach people to bigger district heating. I saw that many years ago in Scandinavia, and it is something which I was involved with as a councillor in Southampton, where we set up one of the most successful district heating schemes in the country. It has everything on it from private housing to public housing, schools and hospitals, shops—it has the lot. However, we have been quite slow in getting domestic properties on to community heating schemes, and I hope that what we are proposing here, particularly given the points that my noble friend made, will progress that along the way.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, we have Amendments 93AAA, 93ZAAA, 93AE and 93AF in this group, which I will speak to as well as commenting on the other amendments. I start by offering my warmest congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, on his promotion. He is not a stranger to CLG matters and certainly not a stranger to local government. We look forward to working with him, at least in the remaining months of this Parliament.
As we have heard, the government amendment facilitates allowable solutions, which are not otherwise already available under the Building Act 1984. However, together with other matters which have gone on, this does not represent the progress on zero-carbon homes that was hoped for and which we believe is achievable. It might be worth quoting from the briefing that I think all noble Lords have had from the UK Green Building Council, just to remind us of the figures, which I think the Minister touched on:
“The UK’s buildings account for 37% of total greenhouse gas emissions, with 66% of buildings’ emissions from homes. The UK is committed to reducing emissions by 50% in 2025 and 80% in 2050. Some of the most cost effective potential carbon savings exist in the buildings sector and Government is looking to this sector to deliver significant levels of carbon savings”.
We would say they have not looked hard enough. In 2006, the previous Government announced that all new homes would be zero carbon from 2016, but this of course will not now happen. It was originally planned for there to be three clear regulatory steps along the way to achieving this, in 2010, 2013 and 2016. The code for sustainable homes, a standard against which all new homes would be rated, was introduced alongside the zero-carbon target. The purpose of the previous Government’s approach was to recognise that small, incremental changes to building regulations from time to time were insufficient to generate the fundamental change that was required within the construction industry, and that clarity was needed on the direction and speed of travel as well as on the ultimate destination. That worked, and it is widely recognised that it had a galvanising effect on the housebuilding industry and on the supply chain, and sparked a bout of innovation in the sector.
After promising early announcements, a series of decisions taken by this Government have reduced the ambition. The zero-carbon target was weakened by one-third when it excluded emissions from plug-in appliances, and they are now allowing a further third to be mitigated off-site through allowable solutions. The standard adopted is also below that recommended by the Zero Carbon Hub. A long-term exemption for small sites is illogical in principle, and we do not yet know how it is to work.
Our Amendment 93AAA would require the Secretary of State to,
“publish a report each year on the progress which has been made towards a carbon dioxide reduction”,
for differing types of dwellings. We propose that the targets should be,
“44% for flats, 56% for semi-detached houses, and 60% for detached homes”.
These are not arbitrary amounts but have been agreed by the Zero Carbon Hub after a significant piece of collaborative work. These are the levels that the industry advises are achievable, and were accepted by the previous Government. By setting the standards at a lower level, as the UK Green Building Council points out, the effect is to transfer more of the carbon savings to allowable solutions, which are generally less easy to verify.
Amendment 93ZAAA, like the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, permits a small-site exemption for a limited period. In this case, the exemption threshold is less than 10 units. Let me be clear that we are opposed to ongoing small-development exemptions. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, we have a degree of equivocation about identifying any threshold, even for a short period. One could advance the argument that because the Government have been tardy in bringing some of this stuff forward smaller developers perhaps need a bit more time to come to grips with it all. Like the noble Lord, I think it is not necessarily right to equate small developments with small builders or ill equipped builders. There is a big question mark, certainly on an ongoing basis, about the risk of sites being deliberately fragmented to avoid these commitments. The Government have a strong case to answer about why they are pursuing this course.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Are we likely to see that consultation, and particularly the Government’s response to it, by the time the Bill has completed its passage through the Lords?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I will follow up with officials after today’s session and, if that is our intention, we will see whether we can deliver on that. I can do no more than reassure the noble Lord in that regard.
I turn to the various questions that were raised. My noble friend Lord Teverson raised the issue of the small sites exemption, which relates to the 50 units per site threshold. The Government recognise the potential impact on smaller homebuilders, and that is why we have decided on an exemption, as I have already said. The principle will be to ensure that the measure is targeted and proportionate to what we are trying to achieve. I have already said that we hope to issue the consultation shortly.
There are a number of issues that we all want to address specifically in the consultation—for example, the threshold and scope of the exemption and how it is applied. Regarding the site threshold, there has been much press speculation that it could be as high as 50 units. However, for the recent consultation on Section 106 agreements, the threshold was 10 units or fewer. This is likely to be nearer the figure that we consult on. In that respect, I cannot anticipate the Government’s final position but I can say that we will be looking closely at the conclusions of the consultation on the Section 106 proposals as we develop our thinking.
In relation to the timing of any exemption, I do not agree that primary legislation should be used—
Baroness Maddock
My Lords, I suspect that my noble friend will again talk about the balance between getting houses built and imposing regulations, particularly on small builders. Perhaps I may say how much I welcome his presence here as our new Minister for the DCLG. It is indeed a pleasure to have somebody who has served in local government doing that job. I did not say anything earlier, although I should have done, because I am really pleased about my noble friend’s appointment.
I want to raise two points concerning the problems for people who are carrying out what we want them to do in relation to zero-carbon homes. As the noble Viscount has just said, there has been a lot of discussion about this. It is not new—builders have been trying to adjust to this for quite a long time. Therefore, if people are starting to cry wolf, we need to be careful, because they have talked about it for a long time and, indeed, have been part of the consultations on how we are going to achieve zero-carbon homes.
One thing that we have been very bad at in this country is taking on new building methods, which can be more efficient and less costly. I particularly remember being involved in this 20 years ago when I was an MP. In a small village in north Dorset, a housing association had tried to put up more energy-efficient homes, using, as much as it could, off-site construction. Off-site construction can be cost effective, and you get accuracy and can build pretty energy-efficient homes. The thing that still sticks in my mind about it is the almost zero waste from the building site while the homes were being built. I do not know whether any consideration has been given in the regulations on zero-carbon homes as to how much waste from sites is produced.
In trying to get the balance right, I hope that the Government will look at these points and say to builders, “You’ve had lots of time. Use your energies in being imaginative about new ways of making energy-efficient homes, because in that way you can probably drastically reduce your costs and reduce the effect on the environment”.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I want to make a couple of points. It seems to me that the amendment highlights that, whatever the Government’s claim about improvements in the position since 2010, they have not delivered the trajectory that was expected and consulted on, on which there was a consensus and which is reflected in this amendment. That is to be regretted.
The other point that the amendment focuses on is the extent to which you have to deal with abatement on-site as fully as you can before going down the path of allowable solutions. I may have missed it in what went before but I think that that is a point on which it would be very helpful to have clarification—that you have to do as much as you can in relation to these standards and can only take an alternative allowable solutions option to fulfil the rest of the obligation beyond that.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for tabling his amendment, which has allowed this, albeit brief, discussion. I will attempt to be equally brief in my response compared with my response on the previous group of amendments.
As I said during the discussion on Amendment 93AAA, the carbon compliance levels put forward are well intentioned and while the Government accept that, we believe them to be unworkable. We all share a desire to see the building of energy-efficient homes that reduce carbon emissions and fuel bills, but we believe that at this time this amendment goes too far. We should not forget that the Government have made significant progress to deliver on the commitments that we and the previous Government made to ensure that zero-carbon homes are built from 2016 onwards. Since we confirmed our commitment to the 2016 target for new homes to be zero carbon, we have further strengthened the requirements of the 2006 building regulations, in 2010 and 2014, achieving a total reduction of 30%. In fact, the most recent changes we made to the building regulations, in 2014, will help save home owners £200 on average on their fuel bills compared to the new homes built before we came to office.
We are not stopping there. As I have said already, we have confirmed that from 2016 all new homes will have to meet even higher standards for on-site measures, to be set out in building regulations. These will be set at a level equivalent to that required for a home built to the level 4 standard of the code for sustainable homes. They will also save home owners on average a further £700 annually, when compared to an existing home.
In order to raise or lower the energy requirements for new homes, it is always necessary to consult carefully with industry. We should not forget that we are talking about a technical area that impacts across the construction sector. It would therefore not be workable to deliver the proposed standard within six months. Even if it were, it is not prudent to have such a rigid timeframe for delivery in the Bill—or to set requirements such as this in primary legislation. If, in the light of the consultation, there needed to be any slight adjustments to requirements, we would not be able to do so without new primary legislation. We have said that we will strengthen standards and deliver zero-carbon homes from 2016. That is a clear government commitment, for which we will be held accountable if we do not deliver. Between now and 2016 we will consult widely on how the new and higher proposed carbon compliance standard should be met. We will share that consultation with noble Lords.
I turn to some specific questions. The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, and my noble friend Lady Maddock asked about the on-site standard and the watering down. The type and design of housing built in England varies enormously. Some technical solutions for reducing carbon emissions work well in certain circumstances—for example, solar panels on roofs—but in other cases, the cost of the technology outweighs the benefit. Developers need to have choices about how they meet the zero-carbon policy. This will increase competition in the marketplace and help minimise costs. We need to strike a balance between uplifting energy performance requirements and mitigating any negative burdens on the housebuilding industry.
The noble Viscount also asked about regulation and allowable solutions. It is not technically feasible or economic to try to achieve the emissions from on-site measures alone, as we recognised when the idea of allowable solutions was first introduced. As a point of fact, the concept of allowable solutions was of course first proposed by the previous Administration in 2008.
My noble friend Lady Maddock asked about wastage on zero-carbon sites. The Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act requires the Government to report on the reuse of building materials on the site. If there is further detail on the numbers, I will bring it to her attention. She also raised promoting innovation. The drive to high-energy efficiency is in itself driving innovation, which we encourage. That is being aided by various government programmes.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, spoke about doing much of this on-site. I agree. We want to push on-site measures, but they need to be cost-effective and a balance needs to be struck.
I hope that the approach which I have set out here, and earlier during the brief discussion on Amendment 93AAA, demonstrates why this amendment would be problematic in terms of the increased demands on the homebuilding industry and the mechanics of delivering it. On that basis, I hope that the reassurance provided to my noble friend Lord Teverson is enough to encourage him to withdraw the amendment and work with us to deliver a balanced package of zero-carbon measures from 2016 onwards.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Before the noble Lord responds, perhaps I might come back on a couple of things. At what point in time did the Government move away from the carbon compliance standard that was agreed, and expected to be the consensus, and go to the level 4 alternative? There has been lots of paperwork flying around and, doubtless, we have missed it but can the Minister say exactly when that happened? What was the evidence base behind that, which led the Government to that conclusion? I accept that they may take a view on the imposition of costs and so on, but it is really about the analysis that underpins that. As for allowable solutions, we are not opposed to them; they were reared as a concept under the previous Government, so we have no problem with that. However, I am trying to understand at what point and on the basis of what analysis that change was made.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I think that I have already talked about the analysis, which was based on various consultations and representations that were made. However, the noble Lord was asking specifically about the date. I believe that it was in the Queen’s Speech for this year.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for tabling the amendment. I agree that it is important that we have information on the operation of zero-carbon homes standards. As I said on Amendment 93AAA, we need to ensure that the desire for information is dealt with in a way which does not create unnecessary administration. Usefully, there is an opportunity to use existing reporting mechanisms, which will save the need for extra legislation.
In that respect, I have to point out that it would not be the role of the Planning Inspectorate to be involved in reporting for off-site carbon abatement matters, as proposed in the amendment, as those are dealt with through building control, not planning, which is the remit of the inspectorate. To ask the inspectorate to report would require the creation of new systems for it to ask for information from building control bodies, and that would create unnecessary administrative burdens.
I have already outlined the requirements in the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act 2004 which can meet the intent of this amendment and would not need the introduction of new requirements. For the benefit of noble Lords, it would be useful to repeat what Section 6 of the Act requires. Under that section, a biennial report on the sustainability of building stock is produced and laid before Parliament. It specifies that the report must include building regulations made in the reporting period, changes in the energy and carbon efficiency of the building stock, and an estimate of the number of dwellings at the end of the reporting period. The intent and content of this existing reporting requirement under the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act lends itself to the provision of information about zero-carbon homes, and could offer a way forward to provide the information being sought to the House and more widely.
My noble friend also asked for other information about what the Government propose. In this respect, we can augment the information already required to be produced for reports under the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act with information available from the register for keeping track of those certificates, as proposed in our new clause. Our new clause enables building regulations to be made for the creation, maintenance and administration of a new register to keep records of certificates as evidence of compliance with building regulations when off-site allowable solutions are adopted as part of zero-carbon homes solutions.
As we develop the register, we can certainly look to see that it will enable appropriate information to be available. That would avoid the need for separate reporting requirements and additional administrative burdens and costs, of course.
In terms of enforcement and how this would work, nothing proposed removes the fundamental fact that, before buildings can be used, they have to be signed off by a building control body as meeting building regulation requirements. Therefore, a building control body need not accept a certificate provided for off-site carbon abatement measures if there is any doubt as to, for example, the provenance of certificates or the validity of the off-site carbon abatement measures to which they relate. Of course, in the last resort a local authority could prosecute someone who failed to comply with the zero-carbon standard.
My noble friend also talked specifically about the gap between design and performance. Our zero-carbon homes strategy does not stop at strengthening the building regulations alone. We want to ensure that the homes perform as we expect them to. To that end, we support a wide piece of work with the industry being led by the Zero Carbon Hub to ensure that all new homes, when built, save the amount of energy and carbon expected.
The work led by the Zero Carbon Hub is looking at closing the gap between the design and the as-built performance of new homes, and we will consider how best to take forward its recommendations. In terms of practicalities and how the register will operate, we are currently working up the detail, which will be subject of course to consultation. The key elements could operate in a similar way to the register of the energy performance of buildings—namely, that a copy of the certificate would need to be entered on to the register by the person who had produced it at the same time that it was supplied to the developer. We would of course anticipate that information about the number of certificates on the register would be available more widely, subject to appropriate data protection requirements, as is the case with the EPB register.
As for how allowable solutions will be checked, I think that my noble friend raised a question about that in respect of a previous amendment. I mentioned at that point that measures such as retrofit, which are classified as building works, will be subject to building regulations. We could also support this through a requirement to provide an updated energy certificate, while small-scale energy measures would also have to demonstrate that they met minimum energy performance levels, which would be converted into carbon savings.
My noble friend also asked about the effectiveness of building regulations enforcement. A building control survey in November 2011 showed a significant number of interventions by building control bodies. I can of course send a copy of that report to my noble friend and, indeed, share it with all noble Lords in the Committee.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I think that the Minister said that the report was from 2011. What is the Government’s current assessment of the capacity of building control up and down the country to cope with these obligations?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
When I put that report forward, I will also provide additional analysis, if it is available. I hope that my remarks and the approach that I have set out demonstrate that we can make economical use of proposed and existing registers and reporting arrangements, and avoid the burden of additional reporting requirements. On the basis of that detailed explanation and the reassurances that I have provided, I hope that my noble friend will be minded to withdraw his amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I support this amendment and agree with it for the reasons advanced. I just take the opportunity to say that I think an equivalent amendment was moved in the House of Commons by my colleagues and voted on, sadly without the support of the Liberal Democrats. One would hope that if we tested this in due course, there might be a reversal, although I hesitate to point that out.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, with that last comment the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has demonstrated again the independence of thinking of our coalition colleagues, at least in the House of Lords. I say nothing more.
The other thing to say is that this is the final group for today and it brings to a conclusion for this afternoon much of the Teverson/Ahmad performance, with a sprinkling of McKenzie. We have addressed several important areas and, in the explanations that I have given thus far, I hope that I have put more detail on to what the Government’s thinking is. I repeat that the important element in all this is that although we may perhaps differ on the speed, and sometimes the approach, I think that the intent and principles behind what the Government are seeking to do are supported across the House and the Committee as a whole.
Turning to the amendment, it is perhaps unusual for us to be debating here the commencement of provisions in another Bill which has not yet completed its passage through the House. However, I recognise the interest in this issue. The background to this is the changes we are making to rationalise and simplify changes to housing standards. The Government announced in March that, as far as possible, we will consolidate necessary standards into building regulations. The Planning and Energy Act, among other things, allows local authorities to set planning policies to require energy efficiency standards above those in building regulations. With the introduction of strengthened building regulations and of the zero-carbon homes standard, this has become unnecessary, so we propose in the Deregulation Bill to amend the Act to remove that provision.
The issue of when we will commence changes to the Planning and Energy Act 2008 in support of zero-carbon policy has already been discussed in the other place. At this juncture, I can perhaps do no better than to repeat what my right honourable friend the Minister for Government Policy said recently in the other place. I am happy to do so here for the benefit of the Committee. Referring to zero-carbon policy, he said:
“We are aware that within that framework, the decision on the commencement date for amendments to the Planning and Energy Act 2008, which restrict the ability of local authorities to impose their own special requirements, must be made in such a way that the ending of those abilities to set special requirements knits properly with the start of the operation of standards for zero-carbon homes and allowable solutions”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/6/14; col. 153.]
That commitment is on the public record and I have repeated it today. It shows clearly that we are conscious of the need for a sensible transition arrangement. With the explanation that I have given, and my repeating the statement of my right honourable friend, I hope that my noble friend has the reassurance he seeks and that he will withdraw his amendment.