Business of the House

Lord Watts Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am very interested in what my hon. Friend has to say, and I will ask my colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government to respond to her specifically. Where county councils and district authorities sit down to discuss these things together—I know they do that as they do it with us as Members of Parliament; we do it all together—we have a better basis on which to consider matters, rather than simply shifting costs between tiers of authorities.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

May I inform the Leader of the House that the insulation companies in my constituency, large and small alike, wrote to the Department of Energy and Climate Change four months ago expressing their concern about the Government’s green deal? I chased that up two months ago to get a response, but to date that Department has not responded to me or to the companies, which have legitimate concerns. May we have a statement from the Secretary of State on what he is going to do to sort out his dysfunctional Department?

[Mr Lansley]

I will, of course, talk to my colleagues at the Department of Energy and Climate Change about this, but I would hope that the hon. Gentleman welcomed the green deal. It is going to have a positive impact on up to 8 million homes over the next eight years and create up to 60,000 jobs in the insulation sector over the next three years. The further roll-out of the green deal is going to take place over the months and years ahead, but I hope that early in the new year we will have an opportunity for him and others to see how the green deal will be having a positive impact.