William Bain
Main Page: William Bain (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Chris Huhne
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. Loft insulation is key. It has a very short payback period—less than a year in many cases—and he is absolutely right that there must be a focus, particularly on the fuel-poor. One of the great difficulties in this area is that the energy use among the people in the bottom decile of income distribution is enormously varied—it varies by a factor of six—which makes it particularly difficult to reach them. Insulation and energy-efficiency measures are key to dealing with that problem.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
T3. Does the Secretary of State accept one of the main recommendations of the independent Committee on Climate Change report this week, which is that the Government need to do more to support the development of electric-powered vehicles? If so, does he not agree that it would be a short-sighted cut were the subsidies for the purchase of such vehicles to be removed in the comprehensive spending review?
Chris Huhne
The Government are committed to bringing forward low-emission vehicles. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is an Office for Low Emission Vehicles, which is run jointly by the Department for Transport, my Department and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and we recently had a meeting on the subject to progress the agenda. He can be assured that we are completely committed to it.