Energy Bill [HL]

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, we are considering, among other things, what is to go into the code of practice. We are not at this stage legislating that these are going to be duties placed by the Bill immediately on the various participants, but it is what the code of practice needs to cover. This raises the point that has already been mentioned; I will mention it very shortly again. There will have to be a balance. If you are going to attract providers to initiate the process by setting up a scheme which involves assessors, installers, the energy companies and so on, there must not be too many obstacles or disincentives placed in their way. Equally, there needs to be fairness for the consumer whose house is going to be made more energy efficient. Throughout this process we must make it clear that we have that balance right.

I have read some of the briefs, one or two of which are reflected in the amendments that have been tabled by my noble friends. I rang one and said if you get all these amendments accepted, you will kill the scheme stone dead. There will be so many obstacles and barriers that the objective of the scheme to get the largest possible number of homes and small business offices properly treated and properly energy efficient will in fact not happen. The response was, “We still think that these are necessary to protect the consumer”. A balance has to be struck.

The one thing that I am attracted to is a proper system for making complaints and having them dealt with. That seems something that the code of practice could very well deal with quite effectively. Nothing is worse than if something goes wrong and you do not know where or how to try to get it put right or you waste hours on the telephone trying to find people who will deal with your complaint. That could be a very important element in ensuring the confidence of the people whose premises are due to be made more efficient. If one adds all the other things together, one is creating barriers. We must be very careful not to raise too many barriers otherwise the scheme simply will not achieve its objectives.

[Lord Whitty]

I support the bulk of these amendments. They may eventually appear in a somewhat different form but they are important for the success of the scheme. I apologise that I was not here at the beginning of the discussion of the consumer protection amendments and that I was in somewhat sunnier climes on Second Reading. This is the first time that I have intervened in this debate and I hope that colleagues will not mind me reiterating my general position.

I am strongly in favour of the Green Deal approach for its effect on carbon cuts, fuel poverty and the bills of consumers of all kinds. However, it is a complicated thing to put together. There are several things that would kill it stone dead, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said, one of which is that the industry is not mobilised because it is disincentivised. However, an equally possible reason for the thing falling stone dead would be if consumers do not have confidence that the work that they are being asked by choice to undertake in their own homes is done in an effective way and that, were there to be any flaws in it, they would have suitable protection and redress.

We are talking about 14 million householders and landlords and 250,000 potential workers in this area. There are bound to be things that go wrong and people understand that. However, they also need to be assured that the general quality of the people that they are asking into their homes and, ultimately, they or their successors are paying for, do a proper job and that there is some protection if they do not. The confidence of the householder and the landlord is essential in this area, otherwise there will not be a sufficient take-up of the scheme.

We have talked a little about certification and accreditation. This group of amendments addresses checking on quality in a reasonably random way. There is the issue of warranty and of having standardised —or at least the offer of standardised—insurance. If we are undertaking building work in our homes, we would expect all of those to exist. If we ignore the need for that, we consumers deserve to be ripped off by cowboy builders or whatever—as many are.

There is an added complication because the people that the householder will be dealing with—the people who, effectively, they will be repaying for this work through their lower energy bills—will not in general be the same as the people who are doing the work, nor the same as the people that will be in their homes, nor the same as they would expect the quality of work from. We do not quite yet know what the range of new Green Deal providers will be. However, there will be finance companies, maybe retailers, banks, energy service companies and energy supply companies. Relatively few of these will be the same as the people making the installation. They will in one sense be subcontractors and, hopefully, the subcontractors will be accredited and certified in some form. There will be standards which they will all meet or which the majority will meet most of the time. However, the householder will need to be assured that there is that standard; that there is the protection of an effective warranty and insurance system; and that there is an appeals and redress process built into the totality of the system.