Andrea Leadsom
Main Page: Andrea Leadsom (Conservative - South Northamptonshire)
Chris Huhne
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, and I pay personal tribute to her for her work on the matter. I am not—repeat not—attempting to make any partisan points. This has been a genuinely important piece of work to which Members of all parties have contributed, and I think it will be a game changer.
On the banks, I shall read the right hon. Lady a quotation that I believe sums up better than anything that I could say what is likely to happen with the financing of the scheme. It comes from Conor Hennebry, the director of global capital markets at Deutsche Bank, who says:
“We believe the Green Deal has the potential to improve access to home energy efficiency for families across Britain, and we are delighted to be working with DECC on this exciting initiative.”
He added on another occasion that
“the City is practically champing at the bit to finance the government’s green deal.”
I believe that the finance for the scheme will come through very strongly. The securitisation market is opening up—Eaga, for example, has already gone to the bond market with a securitisation, and many of the utility companies have securitised gas bills. I think that finance will be readily available, which will be an important part of making the green deal work.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I welcome the Bill—it is a superb idea, and I applaud the Government for bringing it forward so quickly. May I press the Secretary of State on consumer protection? As with any new initiative that a tremendous number of people want to take up, some providers will inevitably promise the earth and not deliver. What protection will there be for consumers, particularly those in fuel poverty to whom much is promised but little is delivered, to ensure that they get the insulation and the reduction in their fuel costs that they are expecting?
Chris Huhne
I absolutely sympathise with the hon. Lady’s question—I spent a number of years on the board of the Consumers Association, and I am a firm believer in the need for good consumer protection. There are several layers of protection, and the first line of defence for the consumer is competition. The inability of householders to get an assessment and an alternative quote—such competition keeps suppliers lean and mean—is perhaps what went wrong with the Warm Front scheme.
In addition, we will have all of the usual protections. I mentioned the Consumer Credit Act 2006 in respect of finance, but there is also the accreditation scheme for assessors, so we will know that assessors are properly trained to assess what people need in their homes to meet that golden rule. We will have properly qualified installers, so avoiding the problems that occurred, for example, in Australia, where untrained people crawled through people’s lofts, banging nails into wires and setting fire to homes. The whole Australian energy efficiency industry was given a bad name for many years because of that, but we are avoiding those problems. The hon. Lady will see in Committee that we have delivered a lot on consumer protection.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I was starting to think that my moment might not come this afternoon. I am delighted that the Secretary of State managed to make it to the House this afternoon to speak to his own legislation. The power of Twitter knows no end!
It is important to outline where the Opposition stand on the vital issues facing the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Government. We would all agree that there is no greater threat facing the planet than global warming. In the 19 years since the Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro, when climate change was firmly put on the agenda, the issue has moved from the fringes to the centre stage. Even during the 13-year period of the last Labour Government, for whom I had the privilege to serve, the issue became more urgent and pressing. That is why Labour not only introduced tough targets to reduce our emissions of the gases that cause global warming, but enshrined them in law.
This coalition Government cannot be accused of ignoring climate change. The Prime Minister himself put the environment at the top of the Tory agenda when he took his husky ride to the Norwegian glacier. At the time, there were sceptics—including the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change—who dismissed that as merely a public relations stunt. We could doubt the Prime Minister’s commitment; after all, he has uttered hardly a word on the matter since. Why else, though, would one install a wind turbine on the roof unless one were committed?
As the Secretary of State has said, the Energy Bill provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to catalyse Britain’s journey from a high-carbon to a low-carbon economy, to change customer behaviour for ever, to lead the world in reducing carbon emissions and to be a bright beacon to our partners in Europe, America and the Commonwealth. So the coalition Government have set out their stall, claiming to be “the greenest Government ever”, and what have they come up with? After months of bravado, bragging and boasts from the Energy Secretary and his ministerial team, we have a Bill that adds new meaning to the word “disappointment”. It is a flaccid lettuce leaf of a Bill, laden with missed opportunities and ducked decisions. If the school playgrounds of Britain have indeed adopted a new phrase, “doing a Clegg”—which, for the benefit of Liberal Democrat Members, means saying one thing and doing another—the lexicon will soon contain another new phrase, “doing a Huhne”. That will mean “talking big”, for 45 minutes in this instance, “but delivering little”.
Andrea Leadsom
I am very disappointed by what the hon. Lady is saying, on behalf of many of my constituents. A couple of months ago I was at a fish-and-chips supper with some retired people, and one elderly lady was literally in tears, saying that given her very limited resources she did not know how she would manage to keep warm in the winter and eat as well. I find it pretty shocking that an initiative that is making a bold effort to remedy that situation should meet with such complete disregard from the Opposition.
Meg Hillier
The hon. Lady may be jumping to conclusions. It is this Government who are removing the Warm Front scheme, and it is this Bill that is failing to deliver for the fuel poor. I shall say more about that shortly.
In his 45-minute peroration, the Secretary of State promised 100,000 jobs. He promised that the poorest would be saved from the cold, and that the market would protect the consumer and many others. However, he did not give us the details of some important matters. We have a Secretary of State who has been rolled over by the Tory Chancellor—and, we have learned in recent hours in days, by his own party colleagues, particularly the Business Secretary—on every important issue in his Department. We have also learned today that the ECO may be within the levy cap, but not yet. We have a Liberal Democrat sheep in a wolfish Government: a Government who want to be green-tinged, but who are under-delivering on their grand promises.