My Lords, this is a very noble cause. I myself tried to introduce a similar amendment to the first of this Government’s energy Bills. I first came across the real problem with it when I tried to draft an amendment that would make block tariffs work. They are incredibly difficult, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, on having got as far as he has. I must admit, though, that at the end of the day this was one of the few instances where I was actually persuaded by DECC officials that the idea was not possible and would not work—much to
my regret. One of the reasons was the fact that my noble friend Lord Ridley mentioned: namely, that poor people are the ones who use a lot of electricity for their heating. It is an irony that people in fuel poverty have to use electricity for heating, so block tariffs are very difficult to use in order to get the outcomes that we want. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s arguments about this amendment, because I suspect that they will be exactly the ones that persuaded me that this scheme was not practically possible.