I take the point, but what the industry is feeding back to me is that it is finding the process to be incredibly slow and time-consuming. People are pushing against an attitude of resistance which starts out by considering what they say to be false. However, that does not add up because some quite hard-nosed commercial operators such as Tesco have installed this equipment and are finding that it saves them money. If that is the case, some support should be offered. It is probably true that the quantum of savings and investment is better in larger-scale uses, but it cannot be true that this is an industry based on a fallacy. I refuse to believe that people would put their hard-earned money, hours and initiative into something which is of no benefit. I recognise that there is a procedure that needs to be gone through, but I hope that it can be opened up to scrutiny and perhaps a conclusion can be reached rather more swiftly than is the case at the moment.
The question of loss of service will be barely noticeable. People have said that voltage optimisation does not work because the lights are so dim that you cannot read a book. However, it is not on that scale at all. It is probably true that most households would not notice it. We probably enjoy a surfeit of lighting because we have all installed lots of halogen lighting in recent years. The loss of service is a contestable issue.
Energy efficiency and demand reduction comes with all sorts of potential loopholes and problems. I go back to what I said about fridges. The Government have been perfectly happy to hand out eco-credits, or whatever they were before they were called that, for the installation of appliances, but there is no requirement that those appliances should contribute to a net reduction in demand. They simply have to be efficient. As I have said, a larger and more efficient fridge, which is what the current trend is moving towards, uses more energy than a smaller, less efficient fridge. There is an inconsistency here. I know for a fact that when the light bulbs credits were available, we were handing out support to people who were simply putting those light bulbs into the cupboard under the sink. It is slightly unfair on the part of the Government to apply incredibly tight and overly restrictive criteria to a technology which I do believe is of benefit while not recognising that great leniencies have been shown towards other technologies in the past. I am not saying that we should go back to that but there is an inconsistency here.
I hope that this process will resolve itself and am sure that the industry will be keen to engage with the department to answer the concerns that have been reiterated here today. I am pleased to withdraw the amendment at this time.