Electricity and Gas (Community Energy Saving Programme) Order 2009

My Lords, I agree with absolutely everything that my noble friend has just said. I wish to make two points on the community energy saving programme and two points on the carbon emissions reduction order. Today has been a big day for energy news and doubtless there will be much commentary on what has been said—my noble friend has just alluded to some of it. It is reasonable to relate these orders to a couple of the bigger issues and the broader picture before I go on to my four points. A certain amount in the orders relates to wind. Sadly, by the end of July, we shall have no major domestic wind systems manufacturer in this country as the Vestas plant is being shut down on the Isle of Wight and on the mainland in Southampton, with the loss of 600 jobs. I am very concerned about capacity. I shall not labour the point because doubtless it was dealt with this afternoon on the Statement. I am also concerned about the consumer, as my noble friend was in his formidable expose. Yesterday and today, the First Secretary has been very busy recalibrating, to use a delicate phrase, the Government’s approach to cuts in spending, in effect, saying that the Government should be much more straightforward about the problems that they would face if they continue in government. It is important that the Minister lets the House know whether all additional costs on consumers which may come from these two orders are built into the figure of the average cost laid on consumers across the country of £90 or £92 given by the Secretary of State in another place. Have those costs been rolled in? I happen to think—I do not know what my noble friend thinks—that the suggestion that it is a mere £90 is rather strange and that the actual burden will be much closer to £250, as experts have been saying during the course of the day. In a spirit of inquiry, I would love to know the answers to those questions. It has always been enjoyable inquiring of the Minister, as he and I used to debate in the council chamber of the City of Oxford. He has always been lucid and straightforward in what he has said. At the time, the town clerk in his wig passed a comment on the pair of us saying that we showed some promise if only we concentrated a bit more. Look where we ended up. Turning to the orders, on the community energy saving programme order, I am concerned about the geography of the areas that will benefit from the quite interesting experiments which will be carried out and monitored between now and 2012. Unfortunately, a lot of deserving communities in low-income areas will not benefit. A walk over a few hundred yards from the City of London, where I work during the day, into the East End means crossing a gross-domestic-product-per-head fault line. It is like falling off a cliff of higher incomes to lower incomes. I do not think that the people in that area will benefit, although I am happy to be corrected on that. Will the Minister undertake that he and his officials will consider the fairness of the geography of the scheme when evaluating it up to 2012? Is the Minister really convinced that the community energy saving programme order can be delivered by energy suppliers and electricity generators for as little as £350 million? I think that is an underestimate. Are not these estimates often overoptimistic—just as is, it seems to me, the estimate given by the Secretary of State in another place today on the costs likely to be laid on consumers following the package that he has announced? Consumers have every reason to be worried, as my noble friend Lord Reay pointed out. I turn to the two points that I wish to make about the carbon emissions reduction order, which is trying to help with the 20 per cent increase in the carbon emission reduction target. There has been a lot of consultation about that and some sensible responses to the consultation by the Government, notably in reaction to providing carbon-saving uplifts to both do-it-yourself and professionally installed loft insulation. I welcome the Government’s positive response to representations made. There have also been a few daftnesses—if that is a word; doubtless Hansard will correct me if it is not—in past policies, such as allowing direct-mailed high-efficiency light bulbs to be qualifying measures. I never thought that that was sensible. Why do we have to wait until the beginning of 2010 to stop that direct-mailing practice, with HECA- tudes of bulbs piling up in some peoples homes where they are not used? Why can it not be stopped immediately, or at least as soon as the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2009? My second point is again on what may be termed gimmicky ideas. I appreciate that trying to introduce some of the things that the noble Lord has spoken about—taking up real-time displays, for example, and smart metering—require not just money but considerable changes in what doubtless professionals in the trade call consumer behaviour. That means, so we are told in the order, that there will be an awful lot of home energy advice. Home energy advice is not adequately costed. It is referred to more than once. Is any of the so-called home energy advice to persuade consumers to change their behaviour, take up real-time displays, to indulge in smart metering, and all the rest of it, to be a public cost, in whole or in part? Putting it in shorthand, is there an advertising budget for that with which HMG are concerned? Following the First Secretary’s rightful remarks over the past two days that the Government should really come out and say what they are spending and what they are cutting, it is best to be open about those costs. I rely on the Minister to do just that.