Housing: No-fault Evictions

Lord Vinson Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thought the noble Baroness would be very grateful that, once the coalition Government had ended, we were able to do these things, looking at what was happening in Scotland and implementing it as effectively as we have. In all seriousness, it is often very helpful—as I and many know—to look at devolved experience and learn lessons from it. We have indeed looked at what is happening in Scotland. While we are not replicating it, there are certainly lessons to be learned.

[Lord Vinson (Con)]

My Lords, I hope any new legislation will make it possible for servicemen and others who need to go abroad as part of their jobs to be able when they come home to reclaim the houses they have let. I am afraid that a great many houses will not come on the market for letting if that is not made possible.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, my noble friend makes an important point. That is why we have the consultation on Section 8. There are many instances in which it is totally appropriate for someone to be able to regain their property; he has just cited one. That is why we seek to do right by landlords in those sorts of situations.

Feed-in Tariffs (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2015

Lord Vinson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Salisbury]

My Lords, I am very grateful for this debate. When I joined this House last year, I was really struck by how it was possible to work with Members from all parts of the House in preparation for Paris and by the strong sense of common purpose with which we could work together. I am grateful for the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Deben, in terms of what now happens, post-Paris, and how we move on. However, I am unable to support a fatal Motion. On the other hand, it is really important that the House discusses where the Government are with their energy policy, and that is what this debate is able to do.

My contribution is simple: I have two points. There is an extraordinary gap between rhetoric and reality in what is happening at the moment with government policy, and there is no consistent overall strategic energy policy. Both those things need to be addressed. As reported by the Hastings and St Leonards Observer in May 2015—presumably just after the election and her appointment as Secretary of State—Amber Rudd said:

“I want to unleash a new solar revolution”.

In February 2015, the Prime Minister pledged to,

“accelerate the transition to a competitive, energy efficient low carbon economy”.

In Paris, he brilliantly said that we are going to be judged by what our grandchildren will say to us when we are asked what we did at this stage in our history, in response to what we knew about climate change.

The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, quoted DECC’s own figures about the impact of cuts in feed-in tariffs. She cited the loss of jobs in a successful industry. Renewable energy is crucial to the present and the future. We are at a transitional stage in technology; things are changing very fast. However, it is still an industry that requires support. On its own assessment, the feed-in tariffs could be phased out within the life of this Government, but the speed of change has undermined its success. I do not agree with the noble Lords behind me that this is about rewarding the rich at the cost of the poor. The average household saving from this cut in feed-in tariffs will be £6 per year. That is not a huge amount on something which we agree is an important goal. Surely it is not good enough to meet targets in this area: it would be really good to overshoot them. However, the concern is the Secretary of State’s own admission that it looks as though, by 2020, we will be 3.5% below the aim of 15% renewables which is our responsibility.

There were a pretty extraordinary number of responses to the DECC consultation on feed-in tariffs—over 54,000. The Church of England’s own Shrinking the Footprint project fed in one of those responses. We have 400 churches with solar panels at the moment: three of them are carbon neutral. Many churches are taking a holistic approach to energy use and efficiency, but churches are just an example of people’s commitment. However, this is made out of an understanding that there is a consistent, reliable policy approach which allows one to make longer-term, costly investments. I would have thought that the solar panels feed-in tariff initiative had produced a very successful public/private partnership, one which needs to be incentivised at the front end and then reduced gradually as it becomes more successful, the technology becomes cheaper and more people use it.

[Lord Vinson (Con)]

Perhaps the right reverend Prelate was not here earlier, but the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, made the point that solar panels are currently reducing CO₂ output by only 1% in this country alone. That is an even tinier fraction of the world’s CO₂ and we are talking about a world problem, not just the UK’s CO₂ level. Even if the number of solar panels were tripled, it still reduces our CO₂ output by only 3%. Perhaps we are pushing at the wrong solutions. That is the point the noble Viscount was trying to make. Perhaps the right reverend Prelate should consider it.

Energy: Onshore Wind

Lord Vinson Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is right about the importance of onshore wind, but it is already delivering for us. On that basis, we are convinced that the mix of other renewables, together with nuclear and CCS, means that the challenging commitments that we indeed have on heat and transport are deliverable.

[Lord Vinson (Con)]

My Lords, as we learn from experience which type of renewable to back and which not to back, and as wind turbines have shown themselves to produce extremely expensive electricity due to their intermittency, would the Minister consider moving on to one of the greatest developments of our age, which is small nuclear reactors? That means that, instead of having one huge nuclear power station that probably takes 10 to 14 years to develop, you could have 10 factory-built nuclear units in a row—if one is closed down for maintenance, the other nine continue to work. This is the technology of tomorrow, which will give us limitless CO₂-free cheap energy. Will the Government consider putting some serious resource into this to make Britain a world leader in this technology?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, renewables are important, but it is absolutely right that some renewables are intermittent and we therefore need back-up. Nuclear is certainly vital to us and we need it. We are looking at the possibility—I put it no stronger than that—of smaller nuclear as an additional part of the mix.