Energy Bill

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, these amendments relate to the strategy which will be required under Clause 136. As I indicated earlier, the clause itself should be beefed up. At the moment the Government clearly think it can all be done by secondary legislation. But whatever the substantive content of the strategy, and whatever definition of fuel poverty is adopted, careful and regular reporting and monitoring of progress on improving the energy efficiency of the houses in which low-income households live, and on reducing the total numbers of the fuel poor in our economy, are important to hold the Government and the supply companies to account. This reporting would also ensure that the policies the Government intend are pursued, whether they are the current ones via the ECO or, to some extent, the Green Deal, or whether they are new policies that the Government come up with at a later stage.

Noble Lords earlier argued for it to be a taxpayer-resourced intervention in improving energy efficiency. As my noble friend Lord O’Neill said earlier, we need to measure the success of that policy in terms of the energy efficiency of buildings, and to look year by year—and in particular to set target years—at how the energy efficiency of our dwellings is improving, as other noble Lords have acknowledged. Even now, after nearly 20 years of activity in trying to improve the quality of our buildings, we fall far short of the northern European standard in terms of insulation and warmth retention. We are therefore far more afflicted by the resultant fuel poverty than other equivalent countries.

One problem is consistency of reporting. We need to report on the achievement of the objectives: on energy efficiency, and on reductions of the number of the fuel poor; but we also need to report on the effects of fuel poverty, and how we are managing to reduce those. Some of those are set out in the amendment. There are references to mortality rates due to fuel poverty; to the cost of fuel poverty-related diseases to the NHS; to debt; and to emissions of carbon dioxide, because this is an energy efficiency and carbon reduction policy as well as a fuel poverty and social policy. These should all be monitored and reported on, and checked against the milestone targets which I hope the Minister will eventually come up with in the strategy.

The other point is consistency with past data. There is a problem here because there is some cynicism that a change of definition of fuel poverty has statistically got rid of nearly 2 million homes without anybody actually being any better off. Some people should have been excluded from the total, but most people would regard that the majority of those are still fuel poor, and the run of statistics we have had from the year 2000 or even earlier onwards would be discontinued if the change of definition also led to an end of those historic statistics. We also have the complication that in Scotland, Northern Ireland and, I think, Wales, the old definition is to be retained. Therefore, when we look at UK numbers for the fuel poor, there will be an inconsistency between the adoption of Professor Hills’s definition and the government monitoring and tracking that, and what is happening in the devolved Administrations, which would mean that we could not have an overall UK figure.

That may change over time, but all I am suggesting is that for a few years we mandate that the old series should continue so that the old definition—as I say, we already have a 15-year run with it—should be extended at least to 2018 and be reviewed at that point. For the first few years of the strategy, the two criteria could be judged. There would be the new definition, which will have a starting point in, say, 2014 or 2015 and is the Government’s preferred definition—for the moment I accept that—and a comparison with the old, historic trend. We would then be able to see whether the change in definition led to a change in outcome statistically and whether that change actually meant something real on the ground. In some ways, the two might diverge significantly, because while the criticism of the old definition was that it was too price sensitive, the criticism against the new definition is that it is not quite sensitive enough. In the end, the judgment of poverty is that someone cannot afford something because the price is too high. I fear that the Government will find that even if they have a relatively successful policy on energy efficiency, if prices continue to go up, that will not show in the figures. It is my subjective judgment that that will be a problem.

All I am saying tonight is that the Government should accept, for a limited period, that we should run the two series together to see if they diverge and whether there are any policy or future monitoring conclusions to be drawn from that. I hope that the Government can accept that, and that there should be systematic reporting of the level of fuel poverty, the success of energy efficiency activity, and of its outcomes and impacts in the terms of these provisions. I beg to move.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has made a sophisticated case for his amendment. When I read it, my first reaction was to say, “We have all agreed that the Hills proposed definition is likely to be more effective in dealing with real fuel poverty than the existing one that was suggested under the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act”. Indeed, as I said earlier today, having reread the debate on this subject that we had in Committee, I had the impression that there was very little disagreement that the new would be a good deal more effective than the old.

The noble Lord has now given two reasons for running on. One is to be able to have a continuous process whereby the old one goes on while the new one is being introduced so that there is no gap, and with that I have some sympathy. But if he is saying that the second reason for running the two in parallel is so that you can compare one with the other, I would find that more difficult. I am not sure how the officials would manage to do that. If the old definition has been established by Professor Hills’s report as really not being an effective measurement of fuel poverty and therefore providing the basis for annual reports, it would seem that the less one relies on it the better, and the quicker one can go on to the new one the better. However, it may be that I have misunderstood the noble Lord. I do not think it can be used to compare; the only possible reason should be for continuity, which I am sure could be achieved in other ways.