My Lords, this amendment is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Teverson. I, too, welcome this decarbonisation section of the Bill. I strongly support the comments of my noble
friend Lord Stephen. I also need to declare interests, as I did at Second Reading. I am president of the microgeneration group of the Micropower Council. I am also the vice-president of National Energy Action. In my Second Reading speech I mentioned the fact that we deal with fuel poverty, and that this was one of the issues I wished to deal with during this Bill: hence the amendment.
The other amendment that deals with this is Amendment 23. Both the noble Baroness and myself, in moving these amendments, have tried to find somewhere in the Bill where we can hang fuel poverty, so that we can get the Minister to show some recognition that it will affect people in fuel poverty and that we still need to do things to address that.
In this section, Clause 2 sets out the matters that must be taken into account in setting or amending a decarbonisation target range. Clause 2(2)(e) refers to social circumstances, in particular the likely impact on fuel poverty. My amendment seeks to link this to the aims of the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that there is recognition of the scale of the impacts of the Bill on fuel-poor households, both now and in future Parliaments, and to facilitate the introduction of suitable, ambitious, mitigating policies.
I have probably strayed slightly into another section of the Bill, but it is difficult not to do so on this issue. Electricity market reform and the introduction of the carbon floor price will impose new and as yet unknown costs on low-income and vulnerable households. The noble Lords, Lord Deben and Lord Jenkin, in their earlier comments, tried to put some figures on what they thought might happen to bills as a result of some of the measures here, but we can only estimate what the effects will be. The Warm Front programme, which provided public funding for heating and insulation measures, to help fuel-poor households, came to an end in March this year, and its replacement, the warm home discount, is paid for by all energy consumers, including low-income households, some of which cannot benefit from the scheme. Interestingly, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have continued, and in some cases expanded, their tax-funded energy schemes to help fuel-poor households.
With help for fuel-poor households falling, and the proposals in the Bill and elsewhere, there is little sign of bills reducing between now and 2016, the date by which fuel poverty should have been eradicated as far as is reasonably practicable. The consumer will almost certainly pay more in the short to medium term, but the Government are committed to meeting other relevant binding commitments, in particular the current aims of the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000.
This is really a probing amendment to see where the Government think they can assist those in fuel poverty while at the same time introducing the measures in the Bill. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge the impact of proposals in this Bill on low-income and vulnerable households, and will indicate how some of the effects can be mitigated, particularly by prioritising the energy efficiency standards of fuel-poor households, and of course by keeping the Bill in line with other
legislative commitments. I hope that the Minister will recognise that the Committee on Climate Change highlighted this need just last week in its fifth progress report to government.
This is a short intervention that I hope will give the Minister the opportunity to tell us how the Government view vulnerable customers, and how this Bill will affect people in fuel poverty. It may be that we will look rather more carefully at this on Report, depending on what the Minister has to say in reply. I beg to move.