Green Deal

Baroness Elliott of Whitburn Bay Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. Usually the debate on these issues is longer than this has been, but I suspect the timing has made a difference.

I commend the work of the Energy and Climate Change Committee and agree with many of the comments made by its Chair, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo). The report is an important one, given how disappointing the green deal has been.

The Committee hit the nail on the head in its first recommendation, stating that, 18 months in,

“the Green Deal has so far been a failure.”

Unsurprisingly, in their response to the report the Government disagree with that assessment, but I think it is fair to say that success of the green deal has been underwhelming.

The green deal was heralded by the Government as the biggest home improvement scheme since the second world war, but, frankly, DECC’s latest figures show unacceptable results, with only 4,721 completed green deals. The green deal is simply not a good deal. The interest rate is not competitive or attractive, and often the deal does not fund the measures that people want and need. The green deal is not the tool we need to correct large-scale market failure. Consumers and installers have been let down, and that is without even mentioning the debacle of the green deal home improvement fund.

We in the Labour party believe that we have solutions to the problems of the green deal, which I will take about briefly towards the end of my remarks, but I first want to highlight some of the Select Committee’s other recommendations, to which the Government should pay real attention. The report pulls no punches. Recommendation 1 described the green deal as a failure and urged the Government to deal with the barriers that prevent even adequate take-up. The Committee’s opinions are shared by the shadow Ministers. The most disappointing element of the Government response was the complete unwillingness to accept what the Committee and many others are saying.

Recommendation 5 is of great significance, and I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say. The green deal and the energy companies obligation should dovetail and be complementary, but we have seen the complete opposite and I do not think that the Government know how to rectify that. Again, I was disappointed by the Government response, which was to claim that the green deal home improvement fund was part of the solution to the problem. I hope that the Minister can clarify how that judgment was reached, given the farce that followed the sudden closure of the first round in July and the numerous complaints that have followed. The fund is simply not a long-term solution, but is instead the Government throwing money at the problem.

The attractiveness of the green deal is also criticised in the report, with a key point made in recommendation 7:

“Unless the package is made more attractive to a wider group of consumers, Green Deal finance is likely to remain unappealing to many.”

Again rather disappointingly, the Government response points to the green deal home improvement fund as an answer. I fail to see how a short-term measure will provide a solution. I would prefer some long-term thinking by the Government, which has been sorely lacking so far. The green deal home improvement fund is not and never will be a long-term sustainable policy.

Finally, of all the excellent recommendations in the report, I will touch on recommendation 11: better targeting of energy efficiency measures on those who need help the most, primarily the fuel-poor. I share the Committee’s view that the Government should be doing more, and I was heartened to see tacit agreement in the Government response. However, their actions towards the fuel-poor do not match up. The affordable warmth element, which is explicitly aimed at those most in need, was scandalously cut by the Government in 2013 for political reasons, despite its having done a lot of good work. It cannot be stressed enough to the Minister that the best way to get household bills down and, crucially, keep them down is to prioritise energy efficiency and insulate people’s homes. The Government sought to do the opposite, which is quite frankly unforgiveable.

I am aware that it is all too easy to criticise the green deal, and the Government have only themselves to blame for that, but we in the shadow energy team have put our money where our mouth is, and in November last year launched our energy efficiency green paper, setting out proposals that we believe would solve the issues that the green deal and energy efficiency in general have been struggling with on this Government’s watch. Our policy has five key points relevant to the discussion today.

First, we would provide half a million personalised home energy reports a year, which would detail how households could save money on their energy bills through insulation and energy efficiency. I think many would agree that levels of public knowledge about energy efficiency and the products available, such as heating controls, are very low, but we can easily give the public that information and it will help.

Secondly, we would administer free energy efficiency improvements for 200,000 households in or at risk of fuel poverty every year, with an ambition to upgrade all such homes and end the scandal of cold homes within 15 years. This chimes with the report’s recommendation that more should be done to target those most in need. It should save the average household around £270 a year and provide a much needed boost given the failings of the ECO, especially following the disastrous changes to it in the 2013 autumn statement.

Thirdly, for those able to pay, we would replace the flop that is the green deal with a much less bureaucratic system. Most important, during the next Parliament we would offer up to 1 million interest-free loans to cover the costs of energy efficiency improvements—something that, as the report highlights, DECC is unwilling even to consider. For the private rented sector, which was singled out in the report, there would be a new target to upgrade properties to a minimum of EPC band C by 2027, which is far more ambitious than anything the Government have committed to.

We have also promised that energy efficiency will be designated as a national infrastructure priority under Labour’s proposed national infrastructure commission, giving energy efficiency the importance it has lacked under this Government. Finally, we would put in place a long-term, streamlined strategy to support investment in energy efficiency in the non-domestic sector.

The Committee’s report delivers some stinging criticism of the green deal—all of it warranted. I sincerely hope the Minister will take on board many of the points raised today. The report’s conclusions accurately sum up where DECC has failed on both the green deal and energy efficiency as a whole. It is clear to me that the only hope for a pay-as-you-save model and for energy efficiency as a whole is a Labour Government after the election.

[Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Gray, and to be given a run-out as energy Whip on the subject of the green deal. The subject is close to my heart, as I represent a seat up in north Lancashire, where it is often cold. I am used to the cold, but that means that heating houses efficiently and ensuring the best value for money are important to me.

I thank the Energy and Climate Change Committee for giving the Government the opportunity to respond to the report and some of its criticisms and suggestions. I also thank its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo), for presenting those to us today. I read the current and previous reports on the subject, as well as the Government responses to them, and a few things stuck out for me that I would like to address.

The first thing to strike me about the report was that it did not feel as though the Committee disagreed with the concept of the green deal—the idea that Government should try to use incentives and grants to induce millions of people across the country to be more efficient in using energy to heat their homes. The overall policy aim of the green deal has been welcomed so far; a lot of the criticism has been based on the delivery rather than the concept.

I am sure that the Committee understands that the green deal is not just about finance, but I thought one mistake it made in the report was putting front and centre the idea that the green deal is a finance delivery mechanism. The Committee needs to recognise that the individual nature of people’s homes means that there is no silver bullet for or instant way of fixing the problems. Many of the issues identified in the report would affect dozens of Government schemes across the whole policy spectrum and the whole of Whitehall, because of the gap between the theory of a policy and its actual roll-out. No plan of any Government—if Labour is successful at the election and the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) is in government next year, she will recognise this—survives delivery in all circumstances. Governments have to adapt to what they see on the ground. The Government have recognised that fact, and in annex A of our response to the Committee’s report we list many of the changes we have made to the green deal as it has developed.

It is also important to realise that in this sector there is always a natural rivalry of priorities between fuel poverty and carbon reduction. That idea came out both in the Committee’s inquiry and as we have rolled our the green deal. However, I am concerned that the Committee focused too much on the green deal as a finance scheme rather than on our overall ambition to reduce carbon emissions and cut energy waste. Paragraph 8 on page 6 of the report opens:

“The Green Deal is a financing mechanism”.

That is perhaps where we disagree most with the observations in the report. The finance is a means to an end. It is about us trying to deliver schemes and mechanisms to make sure that we improve energy efficiency.

We should not forget that private sector finance is a highly mature and competitive work place and area for products. Our scheme will not always be able to provide the best financial offer every day, as doing so depends on circumstances not under our control, such as energy prices and other demands. Over the long term, we are confident that green deal financing will provide the best option, but at certain stages that will not always prove to be the case. We are getting there, though. During the Committee’s inquiry and subsequently, the Green Deal Finance Company has taken quite strong steps to streamline the process, cutting out some additional parts of the application that people felt—and the Committee agreed—had caused delays. That will make a significant difference.

Leaving aside the issues about the finance mechanism, the Committee raised some valid points that the Government need to keep on top of, including communication, behavioural challenges and the complexity of the process. On communication, it is a challenge for all Government schemes to make sure that they match the message to what people are thinking all the time. The good step we took of making sure we put more focus on working alongside local authorities has been a real success, and we have seen an increase in uptake. Councils such as Leeds and Nottinghamshire have started to make a real difference to the roll-out by getting across a strong message that it is in people’s own interests to cut energy bills, use less carbon and heat their houses efficiently.

It is not that easy to get people to change their behaviour. It does not happen overnight; it takes time—indeed, it takes a long time for Governments to change many things. My only message to the Opposition Front-Bench team is that we all go through the manifesto process and make brave statements, but changing the public’s behaviour will always be easier said than done. I am sure that if, this time next year, I am sitting in opposition to the hon. Member for Sunderland Central and asking, “Where is the first roll-out for 75,000-odd homes?” she will quote me back to myself on that point. Things are changing, though, and we are getting to a better place. The more expensive things are now being done. The low-hanging fruit is, to some extent, on track now and we have to get on to dealing with some of the more difficult areas.

We need to look at uptake, which has improved significantly in the past few months and hopefully will go from strength to strength. The demand for green deal plans has more than doubled since the start of 2014, and at the end of October we had a record-breaking week in which 570 plan applications, worth £2.2 million, were made. In comparison, there was an average of 190 applications per week in the first part of 2014. Raising consumers’ awareness of how they can improve their homes is an important foundation of our approach. By December 2014, some 445,800 green deal assessments had been carried out and a large number of people are now aware of what they need to do to improve their home’s energy efficiency. The next challenge is to get them into a plan.

The energy company obligation has been effective and has delivered the majority of the homes improved. We made important changes to the ECO to reduce consumers’ energy bills. We announced a further £540 million to be spent on energy efficiency over three years, and we announced an increase in that figure by £100 million last October. That investment enabled us to establish the successful green deal home improvement fund to incentivise households to install energy efficiency measures through cashback offers. Our green deal communities programme is working with 96 local authorities to get a better understanding of how to deliver efficiency measures on a street-by-street basis and how to integrate home energy efficiency improvements with other aspects of local authority activity.

Stakeholders and the Committee’s reports inform us that we are on the way to seeing better traction for the green deal. I am convinced that the figures prove that we are increasing our roll-out. People get what the green deal is and are able to access the finance they want, so I am confident that, as we go from strength to strength, the green deal will be accepted across the board.

The Committee report contains valuable steers, and I will tell the Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), to take them on board. Those important and valid points were meant in the spirit of constructive criticism, as the Chair of the Committee said, and our response accepts that. We will work to improve our communications and ease of access to enable the green deal to change people’s behaviour across the board.

I do not need to be reminded that there is an election coming up shortly. Energy efficiency is bound to be a high priority for the incoming Government, whatever their political persuasion, because it is the most effective way to reduce carbon emissions and manage our energy demand. It is also good for societies not to waste resources. Whatever the carbon emission challenges are, we must be efficient. The Government have delivered a significant number of improvements to homes, and the innovative ideas to make Government support go further that we have implemented have attracted interest from other countries.

It would be tempting to ask the Labour party to tell the electorate what it is offering, but this debate is about the Committee’s report. However, the electorate must understand that those things will have to be paid for. The Government cannot intervene and encourage people for free, and offering 1 million interest-free loans will cost a lot.

[Julie Elliott]

May I advise the Select Committee that our proposals will not cost a penny more than what the Government are already spending in this area?

[Mr Wallace]

We will have to take the hon. Lady’s statement at face value, but given the previous Government’s track record on managing the economy and their books, I ask only that the electorate look closely at the figures that are produced.

The Opposition should reflect on the difference between roll-out and theory. I remember sometime in 2009 receiving 32 light bulbs at random from my energy supplier, because that was the way it was meeting the rather fudged, bizarre obligations placed on them by the previous Government. I think I still have them—the Labour party can have them back if it wants; it was probably the only contribution it made. We are confident that the green deal will go from strength to strength. The graphs, charts and the uptake show that we are moving in the right direction.

Offshore Wind Developments

Baroness Elliott of Whitburn Bay Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I wish you and all colleagues a happy new year. I congratulate the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) and the Backbench Business Committee on bringing forward this important debate.

This will come as no surprise to those taking part in the debate—we talk about such things a lot, and I too was on the Committee that considered the Energy Act 2013 and have gone over the arguments at length many times—but I am pleased to have the opportunity, at this early stage in the new year, to reaffirm Labour’s commitment to cutting our carbon emissions by encouraging investment in clean energy through the system of contracts for difference. I want to make a few comments on some of the speeches. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) said, there is a broad consensus—barring the views of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who has a slightly different view from ours. I, like some other right hon. and hon. Members, am committed both to renewables and to nuclear, which will both have an important part to play in the energy mix. We need both of them to reach our carbon emissions targets and negate the problems arising from climate change.

Many of the issues that have been raised are of concern to us—particularly the question of investment and security, and knowing the way forward. That has been raised with me in my capacity as an MP representing an area on the north-east coast, where many of the issues that have been discussed today are relevant, and where there is potential to benefit from development of the industry. Investors tell me that they want certainty. They want to know where we are going, and that there is a long-term plan. The decision cannot be one for four or five years. There is broad consensus, and much of what I want to say concerns that, but there are some issues.

Scotland, as we know, plays an important role in the UK’s clean energy generation. It is blessed with significant clean energy resources, including onshore and offshore wind, and wave and tidal energy have significant potential. Scotland’s leadership in clean energy is borne out in the funding that it receives from central Government. This year, having travelled many times north of the border in the referendum campaign—it is not that far from where I live—I have seen, as I have driven up towards Glasgow, hundreds and hundreds of onshore wind turbines, which I think are quite beautiful and add to the scenery on the drive. They are clearly a significant part of the economy north of the border.

Scotland currently benefits from a system in which resources from across the UK are pooled. Scotland hosts 8.3% of the UK population and around 9% of the energy bill consumer base from which we fund clean energy projects via the levy control framework. In 2012-13, Scotland received nearly a third of all renewable obligation certificates supporting renewable energy. Furthermore, Scotland will receive a significant proportion of the support given through feed-in tariffs, which in 2014-15 is projected to reach £817 million.

As has been said, the UK is a world leader in offshore wind, with as much installed capacity as the rest of the world combined. I see that as a positive for us, not a negative as the hon. Member for Christchurch sees it. It is therefore critical that we get the right structures and funding in place so that the cost of offshore wind continues to fall. To ensure that that happens and that the contract for difference allocation works for offshore wind, we need to boost the investment that drives cost reductions. We have seen the massive cost reductions that investment can bring in both solar and onshore wind.

Although Labour—and most parties, as the hon. Member for Angus said in his contribution—supported the Energy Bill as it progressed through Parliament, there were significant areas in which we were convinced that it needed to go further. I do not intend to précis our “Powering Britain” Green Paper, as I am quite confident that most people here have read it cover to cover. However, what was missing from the Energy Bill, in addition to reform of the wholesale or retail markets through which energy is traded, were policies to encourage further investment in clean energy. Labour is committed to setting a 2030 power sector decarbonisation target, which is supported by organisations as varied as the Committee on Climate Change, energy developers such as Siemens and Dong Energy and companies such as Asda, Sky and PepsiCo as a crucial tool to provide certainty and clarity to drive investment.

Labour will establish an energy security board. My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn and my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) mentioned long-term security. An energy security board will plan for and deliver on our energy needs for the future. We will give the green investment bank powers to borrow and leverage new investment. We are focused on looking beyond parliamentary terms and changes in Government to give stability for investors in the energy market.

[David Mowat]

I was listening carefully to the hon. Lady developing her point on Scotland. I thought that she was going to complete the point by mentioning the potential impact of independence, had it happened, on an environment in which one third of all subsidies are currently cross-border. I was wondering—

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. That would, of course, be quite wide of the mark. The hon. Lady might restrict her comments to the effect of CfDs on the offshore wind market.

[Julie Elliott]

I take that guidance from the Chair, but I will say that we won the referendum.

Given this Government’s refusal to set a 2030 power sector decarbonisation target or allow the green investment bank to borrow, it is unsurprising that investment in renewable energy has fallen. Furthermore, according to the Environmental Audit Committee, investment in clean energy is running at half the level necessary if we are to meet our carbon emission reductions. It is also worth pointing out that the majority of renewable energy projects that have come online since May 2010 started under the last Labour Government.

The offshore wind industry certainly welcomed the increase in the budget for less established technologies from £155 million to £235 million, although it was somewhat tempered by the downward revision in the reference price. Can the Minister confirm that the downward revision will have a significant impact on how much capacity is feasible for the same amount of budget? Currently, approximately 5 GW of offshore wind is in operation or construction, and about another 3.2 GW has been given final investment decision contracts. Do the Government have a fixed ambition for offshore wind, either by 2020 or another date, and can it be assumed that that ambition has been reflected in the allocation funding pot? Does the Minister share the view of industry experts who have projected that the £235 million equates to approximately 800 MW, and is he satisfied with the Government’s ambition for offshore wind in this allocation round? Those questions reflect some of the concerns expressed by hon. Members in this debate.

This Government’s mixed messages and active hostility to onshore wind and solar PV, the cheapest large-scale clean energy technologies, have acted as significant blows to investment in all clean energy technologies. In the last few months, the UK slipped to seventh place on Ernst and Young’s attractiveness index for investment in renewable energy, and Ernst and Young labelled the Government’s

“policy tinkering and conflicting signals”

as

“too much for investors…to handle”.

Does the Minister accept that the Government’s mixed messages have damaged investment?

Although offshore wind remains an area in which the UK proudly leads the world, employing thousands of people and generating the clean energy that we need to meet our carbon emissions commitments, it is clear that costs will have to continue to fall, and allocation rounds should be designed to reflect that priority.

Cost of Living

Baroness Elliott of Whitburn Bay Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

I do not know where the hon. Gentleman got his figures, because I looked at the drop in unemployment and the numbers for youth unemployment in Durham showed a reduction of 19 in the last quarter. Although we welcome any increase in employment, he must pay attention to the quality of jobs that have been created. In Durham, a lot of people have lost good, stable, well-paid jobs in the public sector, and have taken insecure, low-paid, zero-hours-contract jobs in the private sector, if any employment at all.

As I was saying, the Government’s failure on living standards is impacting on people in the north-east. I shall go briefly through some of the issues that we are facing. With the current cost of living crisis, people are working longer hours for lower incomes, and despite being in work, many people find themselves in poverty. Government Members seem unable to grasp that.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

As a fellow north-east MP, does my hon. Friend agree that for young people in particular, the often unsuitable and unstable employment that is out there if they manage to get a job—as she said, they are probably on zero-hours contracts—means that in many cases they have to do a variety of small jobs to make up some kind of income. That is not a long-term way to plan their future careers, is it?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We need to see much more action from the Government on securing decent employment and career paths for our young people, as we all want.

amendment of the law

Baroness Elliott of Whitburn Bay Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. I intend to focus on three central issues emanating from the Budget: housing, infrastructure and employment practices.

Increasing the level of house building is vital to any economic recovery and to assisting families and young people to get on to the housing ladder, yet under this Government house building has fallen while rents have risen. Young people in Sunderland, where house prices are not as high as in other parts of the country, still face massive challenges in getting into the housing market. Those difficulties are augmented by the Government’s wider economic failures, and banks remain reluctant to give mortgages, even to financially secure applicants. Renters in Sunderland can only hope that the Government’s help to buy scheme will be more successful than the new homes bonus, which has led to housing starts falling by 11%, or the NewBuy scheme, which has helped just 1.5% of the 100,000 people who the Prime Minister claimed would be able to buy their home.

I welcome any action to help people get on to the housing ladder, but increasing credit without increasing supply will simply raise house prices, further widening the gap between those who own their own home and those who want to. Gentoo, the largest social housing provider in my constituency, manages over 29,000 properties in Sunderland, but it has over 22,000 people on its waiting list, and that is without taking into account new and emerging need. Simply put, Sunderland needs more homes.

In his Budget speech, the Chancellor used the phrase “work hard and get on” three times. What he does not understand is that people are working hard, despite stagnant wages, and they are getting on, despite cuts to vital services.

The Government are dithering on improving energy efficiency standards for new homes. Those delays are hugely damaging for investment in new homes and signal the Government’s abandonment of their “greenest ever” commitment.

I will now turn my attention to infrastructure and the Government’s response to the Heseltine report. Two things were clear from Lord Heseltine’s evidence to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee: first, his passionate belief in the Government’s ability to boost growth, create jobs and raise living standards; and secondly, his concern about the Government’s direction and the fact that

“the UK does not have a strategy for growth and wealth creation”.

I agree that local leaders are best placed to understand the opportunities and obstacles to growth in their own communities. That the Chancellor has finally committed to investment in infrastructure projects is welcome, but those projects should have been announced in his first budget, not his fourth. I welcome the single local growth fund, but it will not be operational until 2015. We simply cannot wait that long. We cannot accept a five-year gap between the announcement of the abolition of the regional development agencies and the devolution of funds proposed by Lord Heseltine. We will not see economic growth until our regional economies are growing.

Where growth takes place matters, too. A report on foreign direct investment by the Institute for Public Policy Research North shows that since the Government announced the closure of the RDAs, FDI decreased by 31% in the north-east from 2010 to 2011, while it has increased in the south-east by 102%. We do not yet know the size of the “devolved pot”. Lord Heseltine recommended that a fund of £49 billion was needed, but Government sources now suggest that it will be in the low billions. The success of the Heseltine plan will be determined not by the quantity of recommendations that the Government will implement, but by the size and timing of the investment.

My final point in response to the Budget is on employment practices. The Chancellor looked particularly pleased to announce that the private sector had created 1.25 million new jobs since 2010. Although I welcome new jobs, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) will get an answer to his question on what sectors those jobs are in and what hours people are working so we can understand better what is happening in the labour market, because I fear that many of the jobs are low-wage and low-hours. People on zero-hour contracts cannot take advantage of the Government’s child care help because they do not know when they will need child care. They cannot take advantage of the mortgage policies because they will not be eligible for mortgages.

It is vital that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor change course so that a lost Government do not lead to a lost decade.

Public Service Pensions

Baroness Elliott of Whitburn Bay Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I agree. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the important role played by the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General. If I may say so, we make a good team in these negotiations. These are very generous pension schemes, particularly for low and middle-income earners, and rightly so. We must make sure the funding of them is sustainable in both the short term and the long term. That is one of the reasons why I find the Opposition’s lack of welcome for the announcement so frustrating.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

Although I welcome the Chief Secretary’s statement, I am disappointed that it has taken eight months to get any serious negotiation and any movement from the Government. I am particularly concerned about two issues. The first is to do with low-paid women workers in the pension scheme, and particularly those who work part time. Has any analysis been done of the possible impacts if they opt out of their pension scheme, therefore receiving less money when they retire from the benefits they then receive? On the firefighters’ pension scheme, we have heard conflicting answers from the Chief Secretary: he has said they will have actuarially reduced pensions, but he has also said they will be allowed to retire early. I am therefore a little confused as to where the Chief Secretary stands on that.

[Danny Alexander]

I am very grateful indeed for the first welcome for my statement from an Opposition Member. The hon. Lady is right that it is important to consider low-paid workers, which is why we are proposing to move to a career-average basis, under which low-paid workers will keep more of their own contributions, instead of subsidising the pensions of the highest earners. It is also why we have tiered the contributions increase in order to try to prevent opt-out. The negotiations on the firefighters’ scheme are ongoing, and I am told they are going well. We have delayed the publication of the cost ceiling to make sure we can take into account all the issues raised by firefighters in the discussions.