Energy Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Lords Chamber

It is important that we do not prejudge the outcome of the review. The Government are seeking to take these powers now to enable us to move quickly if the review concludes that such alarms should be mandated in this sector. I hope, therefore, that noble Lords feel reassured by what I have said today and are reassured that the Government take this issue very seriously. I am very grateful to noble Lords for their intervention on this important issue which has had a significant impact in raising its profile. I beg to move.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to add my name to this amendment. This is Carbon Monoxide Awareness Week so the amendment is extremely timely and I am glad the Government have been prudent, and prudent enough to extend it to smoke alarms as well. I am most grateful to the Minister for the time that she has spent with me on this issue and also to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, in her role as Minister taking this Bill forward. I hope that the Public Health England warning that went out yesterday over fossil fuel and wood-burning stoves for Carbon Monoxide Awareness Week will become a thing of the past. It is important that the cost of a working smoke alarm at European Standard EN 50291, guaranteed for seven years, is put in context. One year’s protection costs less than a large cup of coffee at a motorway service area. Some 40 people a year on average lose their lives through carbon monoxide poisoning and about 4,000 people end up in A&E. This is a really important step. I wish that we did not have to take it but I am sure that we will end up needing to have regulations made. I will continue to question the Government as it goes through and I will be watching the review very carefully. In the mean time, I am most grateful and I am sure that the victims’ families are also grateful that the Government have listened carefully and acted at a point where they could.

[Baroness Maddock]

My Lords, I, too, added my name to this amendment and I am very grateful to both Ministers for bringing this forward. Like most people who have campaigned on this issue over the years, it began with a personal experience. My first experience was in a private home where a room had been made in a roof and there were fumes as the builder had not properly sealed the chimney. I hope that at some point we can look also at homes other than rented ones.

My experience was 20 years ago and over those 20 years a number of groups and individuals have campaigned on this. During the passage of this Bill, we got the old familiar answer that, “It is not our department”. I am very grateful to the Minister because she did not stop it there and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and I had a very productive meeting with her and her officials—she took on board that we really ought to sort this out. It must be somebody’s responsibility somewhere. I had hoped that there might be some regulations somewhere that we could add this on to but that is not exactly what has happened. I also raised it with my right honourable friend Ed Davey, the Secretary of State at DECC, and he took this seriously as well, so I know that a lot of work has gone on to bring this forward.

I, too, thank the Minister for the amazing access we have had and the information that we have all been party to through the passage of the Bill through this House. As other noble Lords have said, we always make legislation better when it comes here. We have certainly done that and I thank the Minister for bringing forward the fuel poverty strategy. We know that it is not perfect but we are really grateful as it was not there before. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, on behalf of all those who have campaigned about the unnecessary deaths from this silent killer, carbon monoxide, we thank everybody who has brought forward these amendments today. However, like the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, I shall be watching what happens in future because the dreaded word “may” is in the Bill; it is not “must”.