My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, for her full support for these regulations. Of course, I do not agree that this is the only piece of legislative work that has gone through this House in the past four and a half years that the coalition Government can be proud of. Much of the legislation that I have delivered has been to ensure that we have more efficient homes, lower energy costs and energy security, as well as looking very much at reducing carbon emissions. So I think she was being slightly disingenuous about the progress we have made. Given that we have spent many, many hours during the past four years or so, particularly in this Room, discussing the work that this Government have undertaken, we dispute that we have not achieved a great deal.
Of course, as with all things, we want to make sure that those who need more efficient homes, particularly vulnerable people in the private rented sector, are able to enjoy a much better living environment. The noble Baroness referred to a C rating. Of course everyone is ambitious, and we are equally ambitious to get the properties to be far more efficient than they are today. We have achieved a lot but there is a lot more to do. My consistent line to the noble Baroness has always
been that we must not do this at any cost; there has to be a cost-effective way of being able to deliver what I think, and the noble Baroness has agreed, is the key policy of being able to help to improve our homes. There is a lot of work to be done and I look forward to debating for many more hours, particularly in this Committee.