Energy Bill [Lords]

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will make a few remarks about amendment 51.

This will perhaps be a rare moment of solidarity with Ministers, as I welcome the position that they have taken on the Home Energy Conservation Act 1995 as it applies to England. The Minister has moved on this issue since the publication of the Bill to retain the statutory provision requiring local authorities to report on their activity with regard to climate change in England. The Minister gave a strong statement on that. I will focus on the importance of the statutory provision.

The situation in Scotland will, of course, be somewhat different if HECA is repealed. I am well aware of the legislative consent motion that was passed in the Scottish Parliament in December 2010. I have no wish to suggest that the Scottish Parliament should not have responsibility for those matters, which are devolved.

In the Public Bill Committee in June 2011, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) made the following statement, which has been reinforced today:

“After we consulted the Scottish and Welsh Administrations, they asked that we continue with the repeal of HECA on their behalf, so it will not apply in Scotland and Wales. The devolved Administrations will, however, continue to work with their local authorities to progress the national energy saving initiatives that they already have in place.”––[Official Report, Energy Public Bill Committee, 21 June 2011; c. 366-367.]

I raise this issue today because some of the energy conservation agencies and environmental lobby groups in Scotland are concerned that what has been put in place in Scotland does not meet the test that statutory guidance would have brought, because the new approach uses voluntary arrangements. While I again put it on the record that the Minister chose to continue the respect agenda for the devolved Administrations, I have some concerns that the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament have not fully understood what they need to do to ensure that local authorities continue to act appropriately.

The supplementary guidance on addressing climate change through local housing strategies was last issued by the Scottish Government in March 2011. That guidance accepts that since 1995, the main legislative instrument for addressing energy efficiency has been HECA, which placed a duty on local authorities to set out and report on energy conservation measures in residential accommodation in their areas.

Under HECA, councils have taken a wide range of initiatives to improve the energy efficiency of housing stock in their areas. For example, Glasgow city council developed a comprehensive strategy that included funding programmes, technical assessment tools and staff training programmes. As a result, the council reported that over the 10-year period since HECA was introduced, it achieved reductions of 30.4% in the total energy consumption of housing in its area and a 32% reduction in CO₂ emissions.

The guidance from the Scottish Government states:

“While the progress made by local authorities in reducing emissions under HECA is recognised, in line with a commitment to reduce local authority reporting requirements the Scottish Government and COSLA have agreed that councils should no longer be required to report under the Act, and that instead they will address energy efficiency planning/greenhouse gas emission reduction within their Local Housing Strategies, and where relevant, in Single Outcome Agreements.”

Essentially, what has happened in Scotland is that there has been no statutory provision and that has been replaced by the use of single outcome agreements. For right hon. and hon. Members who are not aware, those are non-binding agreements that the Scottish Government sign up to with each of the 32 local authorities, if indeed one can sign up to a non-binding agreement. Instead of local authorities being required to report, there is now voluntary guidance and a take-it-or-leave-it approach. One can see why some agencies are concerned.

Some of the areas that the Scottish Government, with all due respect to them, thought would be included in the local authorities’ single outcome agreements, perhaps because there was passing mention of them, such as class sizes, teacher numbers and the sale of playing fields, have proved simply to have been warm words, rather than things that were achieved.

Recently, the Scottish Government raised the issue of the future of HECA in their consultation on the energy efficiency action plan. There were a fairly small number of responses—only 28 in total. The majority of those understood that it was time to change HECA and wanted to replace it with a duty on local authorities to report on energy efficiency.

That brings us to amendment 51, which would keep the statutory provision for which HECA provides. I listened carefully to the Minister and I am sure that other Members from Scottish constituencies will have their own views on this. Perhaps it is time to update or replace HECA, as some people argue. I do have concerns about what has happened in Scotland. However, I have no wish to divide the House on this matter as I do not think that that would be helpful at this time. None the less, it is important to put the matter on the record.

Ongoing monitoring of strategies that will improve energy efficiency, reduce emissions and increase resilience to the consequences of climate change in the housing sector should be a priority in Scotland. I therefore hope that my former colleagues in the Scottish Parliament, and indeed the Scottish Government, who I am sure will be avid watchers of this debate, recognise that although they have gone a considerable way in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 and the voluntary guidance, they should none the less consider the issue again. The Scottish Government should recognise that the UK Government have listened to their request to remove HECA, take their responsibilities seriously, and look at reintroducing statutory provision in Scotland.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I love it when we get to technical and miscellaneous amendments. They sound innocuous, but, as the Minister knows, there is a great deal of meat within the details—it is the sort of stuff that we love to agonise over. As we heard from both the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), there are substantive issues within these proposals.

I shall turn my attention purely to one proposal—we support the Government’s proposals—because I want to pay the Minister and his team some compliments. In respect of Government new clause 11, there was a great deal of debate in Committee on the necessary balance to be struck between certainty for the investor community, and—this is paramount—protection for the taxpayer against the foreseen and unforeseen costs of decommissioning. After a great deal of debate and encouragement from the Committee, the Minister, quite worthily, agreed to remove his measure from the Bill and went away to discuss the options that he could bring back to the House.

I thank the Minister for the way in which he has engaged with Committee members and others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead)—I must single him out. Some of his ideas, including on third-party engagement, have contributed significantly to the ideas behind, if not the drafting of, new clause 11.

The new clause is not perfect, and it never will be, but it makes a very good fist of striking the right balance between looking after the needs of different stakeholders, and—I say this categorically—ensuring that we protect taxpayers. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the remarks of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, because she made some interesting points. I think the Minister has explained very well the use of the word “prudent”, but I am sure that he will address that and other issues that have been raised.

I thank the Minister, because this is how a Bill should evolve—through constructive engagement. Ministers should take measures away, think about them and listen to all the ideas on the table. He has come back with something that might not be perfect, but it is a massive improvement, on which he and his team are to be congratulated.

[Mr Weir]

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on nuclear power, which probably does not come as a great surprise to the Minister. I have nothing to add to what she said, because she made her case very well indeed.

I am glad to be able to support Government new clause 12, on transmission charges. It is a very sensible change. I await with interest the outcome of Operation TransmiT. Will Ofgem finally see sense and deal with transmission charges? I am not overburdened with confidence that it will do so, but one lives in hope.

I want to address the points that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) made about the Home Energy Conservation Act 1995. I received a briefing on that from Friends of the Earth, the World Wide Fund for Nature, and the Association for the Conservation of Energy. I would normally be favourable towards those organisations, but I was not impressed by their briefing, which does not give a reason, other than an emotional one, on why HECA should not be repealed.

Very fairly, the hon. Lady said only that some organisations opposed the repeal of HECA, because some do not. Energy Action Scotland, for example, is much less convinced of HECA’s worth. That is the crux of the matter. She and I probably want to get to the same place, and my argument should be seen not as a political one, but one about the methods of getting there.

As I understand it, the Scottish Government want the repeal of HECA simply because they feel that it did not deliver. HECA places a duty on local authorities to set targets, but nothing over and above that. Out of the 32 local authorities in Scotland, only nine have set targets in the 16 years that HECA has been in operation. Despite the fact that the briefing I received describes HECA as the “main driver” for local authority action on energy saving over the past 15 years, the fact that so few local authorities set targets suggests that it was not particularly effective.