Energy Bill

Lord Chartres Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of London]

My Lords, we have already heard several references to theology. I propose not to speak from a great altitude, but rather from the grassroots—although, as I worked my way through this hugely complex Bill, I found myself at times wondering whether it had been drafted for the sake of archangels in retreat. As speakers have remarked before, it is extraordinarily complex in parts. Our thanks to the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for the way in which she introduced the debate and for the courtesy which she has shown in making herself available for conversation with Members of the House in advance of this Second Reading. It is much appreciated.

Like previous speakers, I find that there are welcome proposals in this Bill that are urgently needed and address objectives that every Member of your Lordships’ House would surely support, including security of energy supply and its affordability, together with a reduction in carbon emissions.

I declare an interest as chairman of the somewhat ludicrously named Shrink the Footprint, which is the environment campaign of the Church of England, focused on our thousands of buildings with the support of tens of thousands of volunteers. I echo many of the points already made in this debate, but I shall not repeat them. At the same time, from a London perspective, with our growing population and increasing demand for electricity, which could be as much as 4% a year, I am also clear that the Mayor’s call for a change in the system which currently prevents distribution network operators from installing more capacity in the network without first receiving a formal request for a connection to the system from individual developers, deserves immediate and urgent attention.

In the limited time available, I want to focus on energy demand reduction, which an institution in our position has very much at heart. We have been exploring how to improve our own energy efficiency; there has been some success in my own diocese of London, where over a six-year period we have been able to save about 22% of our energy use. But like others, we need the help of government to achieve the next level. My question to the Minister is: will she undertake to amend Clause 37 to bring forward multiple pilot schemes for incentivising a reduction in energy demand, allowing not only for a capital market pilot but a premium payments pilot and enabling ordinary households as well as big business to be rewarded for demand reduction?

Earlier this year the right honourable Member the Prime Minister in a speech to the Royal Society said that,

“the economies in Europe that will prosper are those that are the greenest and the most energy-efficient. Energy consumption is set to grow by a third over the next two decades alone. And in a race for limited resources it is the energy-efficient that will win that race”.

Noble Lords will be aware that the Department of Energy and Climate Change launched a consultation in November last year, and a number of ideas for reducing energy demand emerged. But in the response to the consultation last month, the Government stated that, of all the various options, just one would be pursued, and a pilot was proposed. It is good news that a commitment to this pilot has been incorporated in the Bill at Clause 37, but despite widespread support in the consultation, the option of an incentive scheme available to anyone, including individuals, who deliver an approved level of energy efficiency, has been dismissed. It would be helpful if the Minister could explain why it is not possible to undertake multiple pilot schemes. Is it possible at this stage, or in Committee, to give some greater detail on the pilot that is proposed? How long it will last and how large will it be?

Reports from all over the country from people anxious to act in an environmentally responsible way detail the frustrations and complexity of the Green Deal. Will the Minister consider ways in which the Green Deal can be simplified and streamlined to improve take-up? For all its imperfections, this policy remains a potentially transformative long-term project, but it is so complex and paper heavy that it has resulted in only about 200 people to date accessing Green Deal finance.

Small to medium organisations, which include dioceses and individual churches, and faith communities of all kinds are finding the deal hard to implement, while it has also proved difficult for smaller independent companies and co-operatives to access the market. Here, I echo comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. On the point that he raised, I note that there is no specific mention of community energy in the Bill, although I was encouraged by what the Minister said in her introductory remarks. I hope that she will be able to enlarge on those a little later.

Allowing the participation of independent generators in the energy market, via the introduction of some kind of green-power auction, would help to increase competition, while encouraging the engagement of local communities with their energy production. This is an objective in tune with the Government’s emphasis on localism. The Shrinking the Footprint campaign, which I chair, is part of a general community energy coalition. Already church buildings across the country feed into the grid from more than 100 solar-panel installations.

In a highly complex society, security and affordability of energy are crucial. I imagine that noble Lords will have taken to heart the comments of the previous speaker on the enormous responsibilities that the Government are taking on through this Bill: any mistake will have grave consequences. We can all see the importance of the Bill. On these Benches there is general support and a commitment to work hard with other Members of the House to make it even better in Committee.