My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their warm welcome—even though from the Benches opposite it was perhaps slightly lukewarm. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and I genuinely share a concern about fuel poverty and I am extremely grateful that he recognises that the target that was put in by the previous Administration has not worked to alleviate fuel poverty. Something needed to be done and we have an approach that has been reviewed and put forward independently.
I will start by responding to the wide range of interventions. I thank my noble friend Lord Jenkin for his extremely warm welcome for the amendments, and all noble Lords who took the time to attend yesterday evening’s briefing. My noble friend is absolutely right, as are other noble Lords, that we really need to address issues around fuel poverty, and about how important it is that we retain a flexible approach and respond to the change in dynamics across England. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Jenkin for laying out eloquently and with great precision what the Government
are trying to deliver. I, like him, when I first came across some of the statistics at which we have to look, was quite puzzled. I have been extremely grateful to my officials for explaining to me, perhaps for longer periods of time than to noble Lords, exactly how they work.
My noble friend also mentioned the gas grid, and the policy of gas grid extensions. Through the fuel-poor network extension scheme, which is part of the new price control arrangements known as RIIO, the gas distribution networks will be required to connect 80,000 fuel-poor households to the grid over the period of 2021. I can confirm that this is not adversely affected by the new definition. We can of course work with the sector on this, including the fuel poverty advisory group, to ensure that those who would benefit from being off-grid can access and benefit from our proposals.