Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Young of Old Scone

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

It is not about how the Government reached that figure but what, in their eyes, would be an acceptable increase in cost to provide the result the amendment seeks to achieve. If £3,000 is too much, what would be acceptable?

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

I wonder whether the Minister might clear up a confusion that is arising in my mind. It strikes me that we are not talking about a cost that falls upon the builders of these homes, because it will be reflected in their price. The point we are making is that, if an additional cost of £3,500 would genuinely be passed on to the purchaser of the home, within a period of less than three years they would have recouped that amount and be in profit thereafter, for however long they stayed in that home. It is not about an undue burden on the builders, but about trying to remove an undue burden on the purchasers and residents of those homes in perpetuity.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

It does depend on where in the country we are talking about. Prices, as we know, can go up or down. However, with the same theme in mind, I would like to address a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and the evidence he produced. We have strong evidence from the Federation of Master Builders, which represents small builders—a broad and very important sector in terms of building the houses we need to build. The federation welcomed the decision last July not to proceed with zero-carbon homes, saying that it will boost the supply of housing via this very sector—small and medium-sized housebuilders. I will quote its press release, because it is relevant to this debate. It said that the policy would have “held back” small builders’ ability to build more new homes and that,

“over recent years it has been these smaller firms which have been hit disproportionately hard by the rapid pace of change”.

Hence our view that the breathing space is there; it is not that it will never happen. I reiterate the point I made at the beginning of debate: we are reviewing this and we want to have carbon-neutral homes.

Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Young of Old Scone

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

The noble Lord is probably going to move on to it being conducive to falling arches and making children more delinquent. We are talking about correcting an administrative lash-up. Yesterday, I looked briefly at the words that the Government put forth on the consultation on the renewables obligation cessation and the transfer to contracts for difference. That was aimed at making a smooth, seam-free transition between the two subsidy schemes. What we are talking about here is the fact that the transition that came as a result of earlier closure is far from seam-free and smooth; that is all that we are talking about.

On the other hand, I cannot, while on my feet, not challenge the noble Lord on his assertions that any of the environmental or carbon reduction measures are the primary cause of a lack of competitiveness in some of our energy-intensive industries. Our energy-intensive industries have been helped, quite rightly, with the burden that has been placed on them by carbon reduction measures. However, if one looks at the range of factors that makes us competitive in the world compared with other countries, particularly the emerging economies, one will see that labour costs by far and away outweigh any impact that carbon reduction could have.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I am ready to reply to the noble Baroness’s speech, but I believe that that was an intervention on another speech.