Lord Deben
Main Page: Lord Deben (Conservative - Life peer)
Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen
This is a very small amendment aimed at clarifying the position of liquid petroleum gas under the Green Deal plans. Calor Gas, in particular, is anxious to have that clarification, and I am very grateful to it for briefing me on the amendment. Calor is very keen to involve itself in all ways which make its product as green—that is, as efficient—as possible; in particular, in the use of liquid petroleum gas in microgeneration boilers.
I understand that approximately 43 per cent of British homes are currently classified as hard-to-treat for greater efficiency purposes for a number of reasons, such as not having cavity walls or not being on the gas grid. A reasonable proportion of those homes appear to be unlikely to qualify for the Green Deal, either because they have little potential for improvement or because their heating bills are too high for the measures to have a positive financial impact. That could affect the position of those living in rural areas, where fuel poverty tends to be concentrated. Liquid petroleum gas systems, which are off the gas grid in hard-to-treat homes, may be the answer, offering the potential to reduce domestic fuel bills by up to 25 per cent, together with improved efficiency and lower carbon emissions. Does liquid petroleum gas qualify for the Green Deal? I beg to move.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I commend this point to the Minister on behalf of people who live in rural areas. I hope that he will be able to say to us that it is perfectly all right, but the fact is that many people in my former constituency and constituencies like it rely on liquid petroleum gas. It would be a great pity if they could not improve their circumstances. It is an important part of our programme and it would be a pity if, by some oversight, it was left out.
Lord Teverson
I, too, speak as a rural resident. There is a point to be made about LPG. Some of us find LPG difficult and have to survive on gas oil instead; that comes into the same category of fuels. I would be interested to hear the Minister's comments on that.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, my Amendment 6 in this group provides the Minister with an option. I agree with my noble friend that in many respects what goes in the Act, and therefore in the regulations, would benefit from the Bill stating “must” rather than “may”, but my proposal would leave discretion to Ministers because of what I spoke about in the first group of amendments today. We are in a situation where the Green Deal is being developed fast and furiously but without total clarity as to how it is to be structured and how different groups or different types of building can benefit from the terms of the Green Deal.
My amendment therefore gives the Secretary of State the option to put into those regulations, or codes, provisions that address the particular circumstances of particular groups. If, as I suspect, the fuel poor, in particular the tenanted fuel poor, will be difficult to deal with on the same basis as the bulk of the Green Deal arrangements, the Government will need some special regulations to address the problem, and to deal in particular with the relationships of the landlord and the tenant, who actually pays the energy bill.
For example, as we have just debated in considering my noble friend Lady Gibson’s amendment, in rural areas there will be a lot of houses off the gas network that rely on either Calor gas or heating oil. For those people, there will be no attraction in the central mechanism of the Green Deal, as was rightly spelt out by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and others who reflected on that. In some areas, such as the south-west of England, over 50 per cent of people are off the gas network. A larger number of people have houses which are difficult to heat because of structural reasons and which, again, will require a larger investment than is easily repayable through the normal level of energy bills.
Therefore, I suggest that the Government recognise that they may need to make some special provision for chronic fuel poverty, chronic hard-to-heat or locational difficulties, which make the normal run of Green Deal structures and Green Deal arrangements, and the financial arrangements that lie behind it, not applicable. There is no reason why the householders in that situation should not benefit from something akin to the Green Deal. The power would, as I say, be discretionary, so I hope that the Government will recognise the necessity of having such a power, which would give them a little bit of elbow room down the line. They could either adopt my amendment today or promise to come up with something similar in subsequent parliamentary proceedings on the Bill. I think that they will find they will need it.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I hope the Minister will notice that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in that very interesting speech, gives the key to why “may” is better than “must”. It is simply that this is supposed to be a Bill that Ministers can apply most effectively to the particular circumstances. In many ways one of the reasons the Bill has had common support is that it is a brave Bill; it is an attempt to make a big change and to make a big change in partnership. It seems to me that to have “must” without any prioritisation or the like is a very difficult thing to have. You have to decide at any given time which provisions you are going to go for. Somebody could come back to you and say, “Well, you may have provided the first, second, fourth and seventh sets of regulations, but you have not provided the third”. You have not done so because until those regulations go into operation you cannot do the other things. There is a question of practicality that makes “may” much more sensible, which is why the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has raised his particular proposal in the form that he has.
However, it appears to me that the noble Lord’s proposal may well be covered in other parts of the Bill. If he is right and it is not, it would seem sensible to make sure that it is possible for Ministers to make specific arrangements, which will reach out to people in peculiar circumstances.
One of the things that has happened in the course of discussion of the Bill is to recognise how many people are in peculiar circumstances. This is not an area where you have simple programmes, where you can say that everybody is like this. I listened to my noble friend talk about Calor gas. We have a totally different view of what Calor gas is. For me, it is a very large tank with a delivery, not these little pot things, which relate to a different circumstance. It is perfectly possible to deal with the very large pots where perhaps it is not so easy to deal with the small pots. I merely make the point because there is a fundamental difference in the ways these things happen.
I hope the Opposition will accept that, on this occasion, I am afraid that we will have to depend on the good will of Ministers, because otherwise they will be unreasonably constrained in how they implement these matters. I hope, therefore, that my noble friend will resist the amendments, not in a curmudgeonly way, but simply because it is better to do it this way. However, perhaps he could explain to the House whether the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, to make sure that this reaches into all the tiny corners is addressed. Many of us who have dealt with particular areas of the country will know how easy it is for decisions made in metropolitan London not to work in the back kitchen of a cottage in a small village near Saxmundham. That is a different world and we must be absolutely sure that we cover it. In my former constituency, the poorest people living in the most acute fuel poverty were to be found in what looked like idyllic cottages at the end of lanes. It is very important not to forget them.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, we discussed this issue in Committee, and the Minister gave, as ever, a constructive response, but to the wrong anxiety as far as we were concerned. He seemed to construe our concern as being about the Green Deal being forced upon someone. Consent is clearly the basis on which we seek to proceed, but there might be a tenant who comes under some degree of pressure, so the Minister’s response was to indicate that the Bill would have a framework of regulations that would give protection. I accept the Minister’s position on that without reservation, and I am very grateful to him for expressing that concern.
It might have been my fault in not making it explicit enough when speaking to the amendment, but my concern was almost entirely the other way round. The improver and the bill payer are two different people, and I envisaged that the improver might be involved in the improvement of a substantial number of properties, such as a block of flats which he owned. He might get improvements from 99 out of 100 tenants, but what if one objected and said he was not prepared to sign up to this deal and what if it is difficult for the work to go on without the issue being considered in its totality? We have to envisage that with certain kinds of improvements, the whole building has to be improved or nothing is effective. I was concerned to express the anxiety expressed in this amendment about what happens when an improver is bent upon improvements to the property that meet the objectives of the Green Deal, subscribe to all the benefits that the Bill contains and therefore fulfil the objectives of everyone in this House, but one person stands out against them.
I think that that is a genuine anxiety. I tried to raise the issue in Committee. As I have said, it may have been entirely my fault in that I was not explicit enough or that the amendment was not drafted as accurately as possible, but the response that I received was not directed at this specific problem. I want reassurance from the Minister that he has considered my anxieties and those that might be shared by other noble Lords, that this problem has been tackled satisfactorily in the provisions in the Bill, and that therefore we can see circumstances in which we all recognise that improvements will go ahead only through consensus. There has to be an understanding of that.
However, what about the minority position in extreme cases in which someone is excessively affected, not least because, as we all appreciate, for some individuals the benefits from the improvements to the property might look fairly limited? They know that they will get an increase in their bills pretty soon. The benefits might lie in the future and such individuals might consider that their personal circumstances, in a long-term perspective of that kind, are too long term for the pay-off. I am interested in where ordinary citizens, to say nothing of the awkward squad, might find themselves in a position in which they see no benefit but where they are a very small minority and all other tenants in the building see the advantages. I am interested in how the Bill copes with that issue. I beg to move.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I was very attracted to this proposal, but I should like to share with your Lordships why I do not think that it is sensible in the end. I am attracted to it because there are a lot of curmudgeonly people in this world—you do not even have to have an argument to say that people have a good reason to do something. There are curmudgeonly people who say, “I don’t want this. Why have I got to do this?”. I can quite see the argument. I also have a concern for those who think that other people might benefit and therefore have a slightly dog in the manger attitude.
I come back to the purpose of this Bill, part of which is to get advocates for what we are trying to do around the nation: that is, convincing and converting people to what we are trying to do. I find it difficult to imagine circumstances in which a discussion should go on among flat owners—perhaps there is a landlord, ground rent is paid or whatever—about improving the building. I do not like the idea that behind that is the threat. This is contrary to the way in which the Bill is supposed to operate.
The Minister has said again and again that if this does not work, there will have to be further regulations. The Bill is designed to make that possible, but in the first flush we should try to get a widespread range of people advocating the proposal and convincing their neighbours to go along with it. If we do not do that, one of the most important roles of this Bill will be interrupted.
I have been in both Houses over many years and one of the words that I most dislike is “reasonably”. The difficulty is that the definition of “shall not be reasonably withheld” is difficult in the case that we are talking about now, simply because most people object to something in a way that they consider to be reasonable. They might be very unreasonable people, but when they come to the argument they feel that they have put forward a reasonable argument.
I return to the purpose of the Bill. I am very concerned that we should start this whole process of the Green Deal with an understanding that this is the Government seeking—if I were a modernist I would say “reaching out”—to convince the population as a whole that they have created a framework within which, with consent, we are going to do a large amount to reduce the amount of energy that we use to improve the housing stock and to do all the things that we want to do.
I therefore hope that the Minister will resist this particular amendment, not because we might not be driven to it—indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, might be right; we might be driven to it—but because I hope that at least we can start off with the intention of the missionary, to win converts to this, rather than with the intention of the mercenary, to force people to do what you want them to do. All my instincts about something I believe in strongly are to the former, but I have a belief in the end that the latter might well win more converts.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
My Lords, at the previous stage of this Bill, I tabled an amendment about carbon monoxide alarms. I have not retabled it now because I have had reassurances from the Minister. These amendments are about compliance with appropriate standards, so I rise simply to seek an assurance that the standards will cover both primary products and secondary products, which must be appropriate carbon monoxide alarms to accompany the installation of appliances which may produce carbon monoxide. Sadly, we have a steady string of notifications of carbon monoxide poisoning. Charlotte Church was recently poisoned but she survived because luckily she lives in a large house and her grandfather had told her to get a carbon monoxide alarm because of her symptoms. No one is immune, from the most famous names to those one has never heard of.
A further reason that the concept of a Green Deal oversight body is appealing is that, while many victims of carbon monoxide poisoning survive, unfortunately many will do so only with neurological and other damage. They need to be listened to and their claims to be heeded. I therefore seek a reassurance from the Minister that the issue of carbon monoxide alarms has not been forgotten or sidetracked, and that it will be considered as part of the appropriate standards to be set out in a code of practice as a result of this Bill.
Lord Deben
My Lords, first, I declare an interest because, in the course of advising people on corporate responsibility, that can hardly be done without talking to quite a number of businesses that at some stage may be involved in this process—and not only the businesses, but the people. That enables one to ask the Minister to be extremely careful about a long list of appropriately ticked-off equipment. This is an area of fast-moving innovation. I have to tell the Minister that, in the work which I do professionally, one of the most difficult things is to keep up in this particular area, so rapid is the development. One of the problems that any of us who work in this kind of area face is the way that government legislation can hold up the market, stop development, and make it more difficult for new things to come forth.
I understand that we have to have a balance, and to stop people installing the wrong thing, the bad thing, the thing that does not do what it says. However, I beg her to look extremely carefully at the mechanism, so that it encourages innovation and makes it possible for new products to come onto the market rapidly, some of which will be cheaper and better able to meet the needs of the Green Deal. We need to have a system which does not inhibit the very necessary innovation which in part will be driven by the Green Deal. We do not want to have a situation in which the Green Deal is driving that innovation, and then find that people cannot meet the requirements because it takes six months to get it on the list, or because there is some technical reason why you cannot get it on the list. There are so many examples today of things which would do very well if we had not passed some regulation, when nobody knew how to do this, so that the new product cannot actually be recommended.
There is a second thing that I hope the Minister will think of, though this is not the appropriate place for her to put it. I am always worried when we talk about products without talking about people. You can have the best products in the world, but a cack-handed involvement in them will result in a worse position than the one you started off with. I discovered this from my professional work, in this case, when we did some work with plumbers. The fact is that there are no regulations ensuring that plumbers can be competent. You could have a product under this legislation which would be perfectly well ticked off, but a plumber doing the work could make it absolutely impossible to operate it as the rules and the certification would suggest.
This is an appropriate moment to say to the Minister that I hope very much that, in considering the products and making sure that they are suitable, we remember that products need installation. The installers must in fact be capable of installing them properly, or all the regulations on products in the world will not deliver the goods. I hope that the Minister will ensure that, when her civil servants are looking at this, they will see these two things together. They have to be part and parcel of the same mechanism, and that mechanism must not in any way inhibit the innovation which I very much hope will be the result of this legislation.
Lord Oxburgh
My Lords, I, too, strongly support this amendment. Innovation is moving extremely fast here. A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of being a judge in the final of the Shell springboard competition, which, as many noble Lords will be aware, aims to encourage and support small companies which are bringing what I might loosely describe as green technologies to the market. One of the two winners of this competition produced a technology which will have profound implications for the Green Deal—namely, a domestic voltage regulator. That is not a person; it is a very small piece of machinery. Without becoming too technical, I should explain that the appliances in our houses work on 220 volts. For technical reasons of the grid, typically it supplies us with something like 240 volts and 250 volts. That excess voltage, at best, does not do any harm to our domestic appliances, and at worst it damages them, because they receive too high a voltage, and it is indeed wasted. A domestic voltage regulator regulates down to 220 volts, and the consequence is that one proportionately reduces one’s electricity use. This is now a well-tried technology, and has the scope of reducing domestic use of electricity across the country as a whole by around 10 per cent, which is a massive saving. This is the kind of technology that we need to make sure is taken up rapidly. It has now been thoroughly tested, is already available, and has been in use for a number of years at the large-scale commercial level.