Energy Bill
Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, we now come to an issue which concerns the final impact of the whole superstructure of energy policy on the lives of millions of people, because we are dealing here with the issue of fuel poverty.
I shall speak also to Amendment 92B. These two amendments seek to insert a reference to fuel poverty into the section of the report which deals with the statement of policy for energy. When we think about it, it is very odd that that reference is not already there. Energy policy has economic objectives and security and environmental aspects, but also a very important social aspect that should appear in the statement. My first two amendments in this group address that issue.
Amendment 104C is, in a sense, more substantive, along with the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord O’Neill. They relate to the one clause in the Bill that really deals with fuel poverty—Clause 136. However, it is also important that we ensure that fuel poverty features in any statement of policy on energy in the future.
Before I go any further, I should declare a small interest in that I am the chair of a small charity which conducts research into fuel poverty and energy efficiency.
It is actually a bit depressing that right up to Clause 136 we cover almost every aspect of the energy market and do not mention fuel poverty at any point. Fuel poverty is the inability of millions of our fellow citizens to heat their own homes to a minimum standard of comfort. It is also true, I regret to say, that Clause 136 was introduced by the Government at only a very late stage in the Commons procedure, almost the last stage, and received virtually no consideration. The policy statement which backed it up following the Commons procedure—the blue document which the Government issued—set out aspects of their fuel poverty strategy.
The Government have come to this a bit late, in any case. The first period of this Government was a pretty disgraceful one, when they cut back on efforts to help bring millions of households out of fuel poverty. The Warm Front programme, which was taxpayer-funded and treated the homes of 200,000 low-income households every year, was first cut and then abolished, although parallel schemes still exist in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Government also cut back on the decent homes expenditure for improving the stock in the social housing sector. They also made clear at a pretty early stage that the aim to eliminate and eventually abolish fuel poverty was being abandoned. This aim, set out originally in the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act, had been pursued by the previous Government with growing difficulty over the past few years as global oil and gas prices rose. Not until this Bill and the document to which I have already referred was that abandonment formally acknowledged.
The Government also closed the CERT scheme—previously known as EEC—which placed an obligation on the supply companies to provide energy efficiency improvements and was skewed towards the fuel poor. Admittedly, the Government have replaced that with the ECO provision, which is reflected in this Bill and the earlier legislation, but the ECO is supposed to do a multitude of things. It is supposed to replace Warm Front and CERT, but actually the feedback we get—and I am sure the Government get—from the ground is that it is not achieving anywhere near its targets. The feedback from the supply companies, the installation companies, the insulation companies, consumer groups, fuel poverty campaigners and the Government’s own fuel poverty advisory group is that what is supposed to be conducted under the ECO is less in volume and more expensive per item than under the previous system.
I am not blaming everybody in the Government. I am not even blaming every DECC Minister, because I know DECC has fought quite hard on this front from time to time. I know that it was Her Majesty’s Treasury that forced Chris Huhne to abandon Warm Front. I also know that there are attacks on Ed Davey and the DECC position which are now expressed in terms of removing green taxes, but one of the items that is described as a green tax is actually an allocation to help the fuel poor and to tackle the problems of fuel poverty. There is talk that the Government believe that that should come no longer from consumer bills, but from general taxation. But the first thing the Government did was to abolish the scheme which was paid for by general taxation. Can the Minister let us know what she thinks is now the prospect of HM Treasury agreeing to a new major scheme funded by taxation to address fuel poverty?
Of course, the Government do have some money. A little remarked fact about the latest developments over the past few years on energy prices is that one of the beneficiaries has been HM Treasury, with VAT on energy prices and on a lot of the so-called green taxes and, of course, with the VAT consequences of introducing the carbon floor price. The estimate is that upwards of £4 billion is going out of higher energy prices into the coffers of the Treasury and not one penny of that has yet been allocated to addressing the acute problems of fuel poverty.
I accept also that the Government have done one other thing: they have introduced a warm homes discount to override the tariff so that there is a cut in the energy bills of the fuel poor. However, that is not a solution. It is a welcome cushion for those people but it does not tackle the basic problem. The Government have not only dropped or seriously curtailed all previous energy-efficiency programmes, but also, during the course of this Bill, rejected propositions from myself and others that we should try to get a structure of tariffs which help the fuel poor.
In Committee, they rejected my proposition of a standing charge and removal of discrimination against people who pay by prepaid meter, which hits the fuel poor particularly, or having any structure of tariffs which favours the low-paid and the fuel poor. All were rejected by the Government in Committee and in another place. It is also true that one of the effects of the Prime Minister’s intervention in this—the so-called simplification of tariffs, aspects of which I approve of—has led to a number of supply companies dropping their specialised tariffs directed to the special needs of pensioners, who form a substantial proportion of the fuel poor.
I accept that it is not entirely DECC’s fault but the net effect of all this is to aggravate a seriously dreadful problem in our society. From about 2005, rising energy costs have made it very difficult to make a dent in fuel poverty. I know that Chris Huhne came to government in the first instance wanting to look at a new strategy. Indeed, it is no secret, because someone told the press that at one point he approached me as a former Minister in this area to conduct an assessment. I was flattered and surprised, and slightly tempted, by the proposition. But eventually I found out that DECC was under pressure to redefine fuel poverty so that it was not such a problem or such a requirement on government energy policy. I rejected the approach on that basis, as did others, because it was clear that whatever happened and however you defined fuel poverty, it is a big number which is going up under present world conditions.
I am glad that Professor John Hills took on this task. He has produced a very solid document in terms of strategy for tackling energy fuel poverty, very little of which appears in the Government’s blue book. He produced a new definition of fuel poverty, which has some merits and addresses some of the problems of the previous definition, but in my view is not adequate. It has knocked a few million off the total figure of fuel poverty but it is still, as I said at the time, a big number which is growing. The gap facing the fuel poor to keep their families warm is growing all the time.
This whole Bill is about how we run, regulate and provide for energy supply to our population and to our businesses. All we have is the pretty feeble Clause 136 as a hook on which to hang an as yet undefined and weak fuel poverty strategy. The first two amendments in the group try to make sure that fuel poverty is up there with the other objectives of energy policy in the Government’s statement of policy. I cannot see how they can possibly object to that reference. The third amendment relates to the strategy. It attempts to turn a very woolly clause into one which has targets—and clarity of those targets—that relate to the improvement and efficiency of the dwellings of the fuel poor, as well as to the reduction and eventual elimination of fuel poverty in this country. If the strategy does not have ambitions and targets, it will not receive the priority and future consideration in energy policy that fuel poverty deserves.
I accept that the Government probably need to do more work on that strategy, and that is why my amendment does not specify exactly what those targets should be, but it does require the Government to set out those targets for 2020 and 2030. My noble friend Lord O’Neill is more specific on that in his amendments in this group. Either way, to give any confidence to the millions of people who are in fuel poverty out there, and the many more who are aware of the problem—who are sympathetic and demanding action—the Government need to accept that the policy and the strategy they come up with should actually mean something.
We need to refer to fuel poverty clearly in the policy statement. I hope, therefore, that the Government can accept the first two of my amendments without any great difficulty. I also hope that they will accept either my third amendment or that of my noble friend Lord O’Neill, or at least commit themselves to coming forward at Third Reading with something very like it which gives a structure and a framework for fuel poverty. As we know, fuel poverty is a terrible curse on our country. It causes people to skimp on food, and to not buy necessities for their children. It causes serious lung and heart conditions in thousands of our citizens at an estimated cost of £1.3 billion a year to the National Health Service. It causes whole families to live in discomfort, in anxiety, in the cold, and in distress. It is shocking that this Bill and the energy policy of the Government do not give greater prominence to the need to tackle this curse.
These amendments, if the Government can accept them, would go some way to deal with this. The Government need to accept the first two amendments as they are, because they do not of themselves present an obligation but they indicate a commitment to tackle this issue. I hope that the Government will also accept something like my third amendment, so that we can start making it clear to the rest of Government and to the population out there that this Government do care about fuel poverty, are prepared to do something about it, and will do so as rapidly as they can in the context of the big reform of the energy markets. I beg to move.
Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan (Lab)
I am pleased to follow my noble friend. In addressing his amendments he covered, in part, some of the points I will raise in relation to my own. It is fair to say that the four amendments I tabled seek to add a bit of muscle and detail to the Government’s commitment. I will talk about this more in my later remarks, but the rather late insertion of concerns about fuel poverty into the Bill mean that it is rather late in the day for some of the amendments that we put forward, which are of a probing character. Therefore, one would hope that the spirit of these amendments will be carried into secondary legislation: that is, statutory instruments, of which many are likely to be forthcoming.
The existing legislation, namely the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000, was steered through this House by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, who I regret is unable to be here today. All credit should be given to her for her efforts in that area, although I was always a little bit dubious about plucking a date out of the air. I know that the date was the subject of some arm-wrestling between the then Labour Government and the Back-Benchers. However, the fact is that it was an attempt. At the time there was a degree of optimism because, as noble Lords will recall, energy prices, particularly gas prices, were falling. We could see households moving out of what was known at the time as fuel poverty in quite considerable numbers. Not only were gas prices falling and thus people’s disadvantage in the energy market diminishing, there was also a sense that the general economic prosperity of the time meant that the situation of the poor would become easier and, as the Americans say, all the boats would rise together. Unfortunately, all the boats did not rise but the price of energy subsequently did, and the poor were left stranded in their inadequately insulated and poorly built homes.
Energy Bill
Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
I rise stimulated by the right reverend Prelate’s remarks, partly because when hydropower developments took place in Scotland, the nature of the opposition to them was very similar to the nature of the opposition to wind turbines today. Indeed, if you read any of the histories of hydropower in Scotland, you find the same arguments and the same kind of protagonists. Indeed, as I recall, one of the supporters of hydropower in the 1930s was expelled from the Perthshire hunt on the grounds that they were going to deface Pitlochry. Anybody who knows Scotland will know that Pitlochry is a great tourist attraction on the way up to Inverness and that the jewel in the crown of Pitlochry is the hydroelectric dam and the salmon leap there. If anyone were now to try to say that they wanted to close it down because it is spoiling the countryside, they would get rather a lot of fleas in their ears from the kind of people who say that they want to have hydropower but not wind power. That has to be taken into account.
Hydropower is one of the most attractive forms of generation. It is also interesting that subsidies for refurbishment have been made available to small-scale hydro, which may well be the case in Chester as well as in Deeside in Scotland. I had the opportunity of visiting one site some years ago because the kit had been refurbished in my constituency by the Weir Group of Alloa. The output had been increased from 70 megawatts of power to 81 megawatts, which was a considerable achievement. This is far smaller, but we can bring into play hydro opportunities that have perhaps fallen into disuse. It would be better if they could get the best possible deal because river flow—drought notwithstanding—tends to be pretty reliable. One would imagine that this, out of all the renewables, would be less prone to interruptibility and that therefore an amendment of this nature seeking to give a bit of extra assistance would be extremely helpful at this time. I support the amendment.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and other speakers have made a very good case for looking at what the noble Lord says is an apparent contradiction, but I think is a clear contradiction, between the approach of the Valuation Office Agency and DECC to these things. We are talking about schemes that are very different from Pitlochry or whatever. We talking below 1.2 megawatts, but even at that level, I have some hesitation. If you were doing it for domestic purposes only, it is unlikely that you would get huge benefit in terms of your energy bill or your carbon footprint or that climate change would benefit any more than from putting a windmill on the side of your house in Notting Hill. It is not for domestic purposes. The way in which it is financed feeds into the grid and it therefore becomes a business. It is not entirely illogical for the business rates people in the Valuation Office Agency to take that into account, although the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Roper, about this being treated differently from other forms of renewable energy is an issue. I wish this amendment godspeed in terms of looking at the contradiction.
Energy Bill
Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
Lord Whitty
My Lords, this amendment would provide for the setting up of an expert committee or advisory group. Our other amendment, Amendment 55ZG, would effectively write a schedule setting out the role and operation of that group.
As my noble friend said just now, there are, of course, technical advisory groups available to the Secretary of State, the department and Ofgem on all sorts of aspects of the Bill. They exist as energy policy is developed. The importance of this role is that we would be putting it on a statutory basis to ensure that there is some check on how the process that we are setting up under the Bill is operated in practice and to give all parties some degree of reassurance and demystification about a process which is very novel and not widely understood. It is one where the Government are still working out the details and which will undoubtedly encounter some hiccups, growing pains, difficulties and setbacks as they try to implement it.
As far as the general public are concerned, this is a completely novel concept. They sort of understand a market, but this is not a market. They understood the old CEGB system, more or less, but this is not a centrally controlled system. It is not a system which is really being delivered by the regulator in the normal sense, which was how the market was for the past couple of decades. It is, perhaps, a managed oligopoly but with big companies—big oligopolists—which by and large are not trusted. These are government deals which necessarily have to be complex and negotiated behind closed doors, but the outcome will arouse misunderstanding and suspicion unless there is some assurance that they have been properly audited in some form or other.
These are contracts for a major part of our energy supply, which last for 15 or 25 years. We are locked into those contracts, and we therefore need experts to look at how they will be operated by the department or Ofgem, or possibly its successor under a different Government. The way in which they deliver will determine a lot of our energy mix and, effectively, determine what broad price business and domestic consumers will face. Hence, they will have social, economic and competitiveness implications and may have serious implications for our energy security, as they are one of the main means of delivering it.
Part of the mystery of all this—even to me, who has tried to understand it through these deliberations—is that the contracts will all be delivered by a counterparty whose form has yet to be defined. We now know that there will be a single counterparty, although that is not fully reflected in the Bill. We know that it will be a private but government-backed company. Apart from that, we do not know what its responsibilities, accountability or structure are likely to be. It will be responsible for the government side, or perhaps the societal side, of these very important contracts. Over 15 or 25 years, the contracts will go through periods of substantial change and may be required to be reviewed or reassessed. In some cases, the contracts will probably not last the full 25 years with the same company because the structure of companies is likely to change, as it has over the past 25 years.
We need some reassurance. At the moment, the Secretary of State and the rather shadowy counterparty are the responsible bodies, supported by Ofgem and by advice from National Grid. Before we go on from this part of the Bill, we need at the very least to have a formal system of advice built into that process so that on each contract for difference and each investment contract there is somebody looking at its financial and legal structure and its value for money. That would not be for the company or indeed for the strategy, but for the consumers and for the security of supply to our businesses and householders. The advice that will be given to the Secretary of State, the authority and the counterparty needs to be seen to be neutral or non-interested in the affairs of the various parties involved.
The first part of the amendment sets out the duties of such a group to advise the Secretary of State and the counterparty on the development of those contracts and to look contract by contract at their effectiveness. The last part deals simply with the composition, but the composition is important. Vitally, it has an independent chair appointed for probably two terms of up to eight years in total, and importantly has a consumer representative involved. At the end of the day, as the Minister reminded us, and as her predecessor constantly reminded us when discussing energy Bills, this is ultimately government policy focused on benefit to the consumer, by which we mean both business and domestic consumers. We need consumer representation and technical, academic, economic and technological advice to the counterparty and the Minister in drawing up these contracts. We are looking at value for money for the consumer.
I hope that the Government will take seriously the need to build into the process some form of such a body. They may not approve of the wording of the amendment and may wish to narrow or broaden its terms of reference. On the face of it, there is no reason why this should not be extended to capacity mechanism deals as well. I hope that the Government will see the sense in having a body that is publicly accountable and will report to Parliament. Certainly if the Secretary of State refuses to accept its advice in relation to particular contracts, it will require the Secretary of State to spell out why such advice has been rejected, and there will be a report to Parliament.
This must be to the long-term benefit of this process in working out at the point of delivery the policy objectives behind this Energy Bill and delivering the long-term interests of consumers of energy in this country. I hope that the Government will consider the proposition. As I say, I do not expect them necessarily to accept the wording, but I hope that they will come up with an entity that performs this and provides a degree of demystification, accountability and a high degree of public and consumer reassurance. I beg to move.
Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan
I express my support for the amendment. A number of the utilities are doing something on their own behalf to try to present themselves to the regulator as responsible citizens, as it were. They tend to use expressions, such as stakeholder engagement monitoring, which is a bit of a mouthful. If it is good enough for the utilities to do it independently to try to present themselves in a way that will meet the requirements of the regulator, it is surely appropriate that this rather complex market system that we are seeking to construct should have a degree of independence. I do not think that it should be seen as anything other than sympathetic monitoring. It is in everyone’s interests that the system works and that those who monitor are credible and independent.
The manner in which it has been constructed here, as my noble friend said, is not necessarily the final word, but the principle of having in the Bill a monitoring mechanism that is seen to be independent—to the extent that these things are possible—of government, the utilities and other players is a highly desirable state of affairs. There is an awful lot of public concern and lack of trust in the utilities and the associated bodies around them. This would go some way to reassure the public that there was an independent monitoring body.
Energy Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan(13 years, 9 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord Whitty
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, said on the previous amendment, it is clearly the general target of the Government—as shown by providing the ROCs incentive—to increase the amount of renewable energy in this country by 2020, and to make offshore wind the major component of the provision of that quota. We have already done reasonably well, in that there are already 1.3 gigawatts of offshore wind operating around our coasts, and other projects are in the pipeline. However, the process takes considerable time. For it to happen—again, as the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, said—we need not only the incentive of the ROCs in place, but the means of mobilising substantial sums of private capital. That private capital needs to minimise risk. At the moment, the problem for an offshore wind facility, either in operation or provisional—with a lease granted by the Crown Estate or with an agreement to lease—is that the prospect of an oil or gas facility being put in the same area will kill that investment stone dead. It would certainly put off prospective investors in that scheme or potential scheme.
The amendment therefore seeks to ensure that investors in the industry and the supply industry—an important economic by-product of offshore wind—have sufficient confidence to invest sums of money in offshore facilities that are not threatened by effectively being displaced by a future oil or gas facility. That is needed because of the present disparity of provision in the rules governing offshore oil and gas consents. The amendment would prevent a forced intervention by the Secretary of State to consent to an oil and gas works on top of an existing lease, or agreement to lease, for an offshore renewable project. It would allow the offshore oil or gas project to occur were consent to be given by the operator or potential operator of the offshore activity—in other words, provided that negotiations could operate and an agreement could be reached, there could be coexistence. Although theoretically both sides of the equation recognise the need for coexistence, there is no balanced system for dealing with them.
It is not that we are creating a special, privileged position for offshore wind, because the consenting system for offshore renewables in general—tidal and wave power would also be covered by the amendment— includes a requirement to negotiate with other sea users. The offshore operator is required to negotiate with the potential gas operators and other users of the seabed. On the other hand, the current guidance from the Infrastructure Planning Commission—which, until the Government get their way, is the planning authority—requires that the views of other sea users must be sought out, that action taken in response to those views must be reported and that justification must be given where no action is taken. However, the Petroleum Act requires oil and gas activity to take due regard of other projects, such as renewables, but there is no requirement to negotiate in those circumstances. We are not talking about a level playing field at the moment, and I therefore hope that the Minister and the Government will recognise that there is an issue here.
There is particularly an issue about discouraging the substantial amounts of private investment that will be needed in these offshore technologies in order to meet the Government’s targets for renewables. It is already public policy to reach those targets, but the present system threatens confidence in investments in those targets. It is certainly the case that for those seeking finance from the City and elsewhere for these projects—particularly as we go further offshore, as we will need to do—questions of confidence and the possibility of the leases being overridden by a subsequent decision on oil and gas facilities are major considerations and some of the reasons why such investment is inhibited. I hope that the Minister will at least recognise that this is a problem. If he is not prepared to accept the exact wording of this amendment, I hope that he will recognise that this is something that the Government have to address and that some degree of equal treatment will be needed down the line.
I think all sides of this Committee recognise the importance of meeting these renewable targets and want to remove any inhibition in doing so. Therefore, this amendment, or something like it, is a necessary step to ensure that the investment is there to meet those targets. I beg to move.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
Is the basis for this amendment that somehow it is preferable for us to have offshore wind rather than access to oil and gas? For many of us, it is as important in this country that we have access to the reserves of oil and gas in order to sustain a number of our vital industries. They will depend on electricity for a lot of their fuel sources. If I were still speaking as a constituency MP representing a seat near Grangemouth, the last thing I would want to do would be to support offshore wind at the expense of adequate supplies of gas and oil to go into the oil refinery and the chemical processing plants that are a major source of employment for my constituents. My noble friend needs to be rather more frank with us. Is it just for the convenience of investors or it is based on the assumption that somehow oil and gas are bad and windmills are good?
Lord Whitty
I think it is just as well that the MP for Grangemouth does not determine our energy policy. It is important to recognise that there are substantial employment opportunities in renewables.
Lord Whitty
Indeed. Many of those jobs have the skills that will be required in renewable technologies as well. However, at the moment it is the Government’s policy, the previous Government’s policy and the policy of all parties in this House to reach the target for renewables in this country. That is not saying that we should close down oil and gas opportunities; it is saying that in future we should give the renewables industry, whether wind, tidal or wave, equal opportunity with gas and oil facilities. When offshore wind providers are seeking private investment in a relatively new technology, the confidence of those investors and the realisation of government policy in this area are inhibited by the threat of the oil and gas facilities trumping them. To look at it the other way around, if proposers proposing a renewables process operation are faced with the possibility of an oil and gas facility coming in, they have to negotiate. At the moment, there is no obligation on the oil and gas companies to negotiate, which is the injustice that I am addressing.
To be frank with my noble friend, I think that, yes, it is a matter of public policy to give some preference to renewable industries and that we reduce the carbon content of our energy supply. It is therefore important to reduce the reliance on carbon-based fossil fuel. But that is not quite what this amendment is addressing. It is to address the disparity of treatment between the two sectors and to ensure that confidence can be inspired for developing renewable technologies offshore.
Energy Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan(13 years, 9 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. The Minister said that provisions exist in the 2008 Act and it is clear, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said, that some progress on a voluntary code of practice has been made. However, this section of the Bill is intended to move that forward in a way that meets anxieties that interoperability and householders’ freedom of choice are protected.
I should probably have declared a past interest: until last month, I was the chair of Consumer Focus. There has been some engagement, but not all our points have been met, in particular the issue that, from the word go of the rollout, consumers should not be subject to cost when they switch. The Minister has already consulted with British Gas and Centrica. There are about 250,000 smart meters out there. The estimate is that, by 2014, there will be 4 million, most of which will be British Gas. This is before the standards on interoperability have risen. My understanding is that, at the moment, if British Gas customers who have one of these smart meters want to switch, they will effectively be in dumb mode if they switch to another supplier whose meters are not compatible. Likewise, if they are on pre-payment but wish to switch, the smart-meter systems for pre-payment and for direct debit, for example, are not compatible.
In many ways, I am pleased that British Gas has taken the initiative in starting to roll these things out for all the reasons that people have given—we want them out there as soon as possible. However, the fact of the matter is that we are going to have a whole number of them that are not compatible and, unless we lay down principles in this Bill, that will continue. Those principles need to apply to the ongoing rollout and they need to apply to the standardisation that is introduced beyond 2014.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that the manner of meeting those requirements can be flexible. I am in favour of a strong voluntary code of practice covering this area, but the principles that lie behind my amendments should surely be in primary legislation. I accept that these amendments are probably too complicated and that ongoing discussions and outcomes need to be taken into account when we reach the final draft, but I would be concerned if we were to pass the Bill without the principles of, in particular, no detriment in terms of choice and no mis-selling being written into the primary legislation.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
Is my noble friend not concerned that, from what the Minister has said, the ongoing discussions will probably be completed by the summer, by which time this Bill will have become an Act? Therefore, it will not be possible for us to deal with the outcome of these discussions in relation to this legislation. It will require a subsequent electricity/gas Act to accommodate it, unless we are going to have some kind of magic SI brought in at a later stage to take account of the discussions. Has my noble friend thought of this point?
Lord Whitty
My Lords, we get energy Acts rather frequently and one would hope that this would not provoke an even speedier reversion to new primary legislation in this field. As I understand what the Minister was referring to, he was speaking about the discussions involving the regulations that Ofgem is going to bring forward as part of its spring package, which—confusingly, as he says—will emerge in the summer. That is not necessarily the end of the line. I hope that, by the time the discussions are finalised in, shall we say, the late spring, the outline of this part of the Bill will be clear to Ofgem and those with whom Ofgem is consulting. If it is not, the situation to which my noble friend Lord O’Neill refers arises.
Energy Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan(13 years, 9 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I support this amendment. As suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, this subsection may be deleted because the second subsection still leaves it to the judgment of the Secretary of State as to whether regulations are necessary. Clause (1)(b)(i) would be part of those regulations in any circumstances; the Secretary of State would need to be convinced the regulations would increase the energy efficiency of the buildings in question. Any Secretary of State who failed to do that would be perverse.
The remainder of subsection (1), which the amendment is designed to delete, makes it time-specific; it requires the review to have been completed and it requires the Secretary of State to consider how the supply of privately rented accommodation would suffer as a result of the regulations, whether the effect would be neutral or whether the quality would increase, therefore having an effect on the rental market as well.
The Secretary of State needs these powers, irrespective of the report and the timing. Subsection (1) permits the Secretary of State to use them if he or she decides to do so. We are not jumping immediately to regulation as a sledgehammer to crack a rather large nut; however, the constraints on so doing in subsection (1) are unnecessary and I therefore support the amendment.
Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan
My Lords, I support this amendment. In the past I may have conveyed the impression that all landlords were bad. That is not true and it was not my intention to do so. There are, however, too many landlords who are not very good and some of them go up the Richter scale to very awful. We know that some of them will not be moved by the spirit of this Bill, either to get people’s homes well insulated or to save the planet. We recognise that it is preferable not to be unduly prescriptive when legislation is being introduced, but if we find there are abuses which we could more speedily remedy through regulation, we need not necessarily have that within the agenda of the review committee, worthy though its endeavours may turn out to be.
We know that there are landlords who do not enter into the spirit of even the existing legislation and if they are shown to be as recalcitrant following the new legislation as they have been in the past with the old, then we should move with all reasonable speed. That does not necessarily require us to make their activities the subject of a review procedure, some aspects of which may not be relevant to the problem and may require a more leisurely and rigorous approach to dealing with it.
If there are abuses and there are remedies available to deal with these abuses, it should be incumbent on the Government of the day to move with all desirable speed to address these challenges. Even with the best of endeavours, we are not going to produce an ideal piece of legislation which will inspire the desire to follow on with the good work or inspire fear in the part of the more recalcitrant landlords whom I consider, for the benefit of the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, a minority. Sadly, the nature of their abuses makes them a significant minority in a number of instances when we realise the pain they impose on, very often, vulnerable and disadvantaged families.