Energy Bill

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Maddock]

I totally agree with the noble Lord, but he gave the impression, I think, that we had not concerned ourselves with this subject. I apologise if that was not what he meant but it was the impression I got. We have done that and the Government have shown that they recognise some of the problems by bringing forward a clause specifically about fuel poverty and a fuel poverty strategy. I agree with the noble Lord that these are important issues but he has slightly distorted how the passage of the Bill has gone, and the Government’s interest. But I support him in trying to ensure that this is at the heart of what we are doing and share his hope that the Minister can reassure him that we do not need the amendment.

I talked about small businesses and domestic customers particularly in the context of demand reduction pilots. I cannot remember whether it was in Committee or at Second Reading but several of us went into that in quite a bit of detail.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, on producing an amendment that is probably the most regular identical amendment to come before your Lordships’ House. It is not an amendment that he would have found in the other place but “may” to “must” was something that I defended hugely for 10 years against attacks from the Opposition. As soon as the Opposition got into government and I put down a “may” to “must” amendment, they defended it with exactly the same arguments that I had used. I expect my noble friend the Minister to repeat those arguments of 30 years ago, and we will listen, as we have always listened, and come to the conclusion that “may” is still the right answer.

I hope that my noble friend will dismiss the second amendment. The principle is absolutely right but it is completely otiose. It is already well covered in the Bill. In fact, Clause 21(3) covers the point fairly adequately. It was pointed out to us in Sub-Committee D when we prepared our report on energy that the best way to reduce energy demand is energy efficiency. It is not just for households and small businesses, it is for all businesses. To identify small businesses in the Bill would be quite wrong and give a totally wrong impression.