My Lords, first, I applaud the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for braving the Chamber today with what sounded like a few unwanted gremlins in her voice. I heard her loud and clear. I thank her for giving us the opportunity today to debate her proposed new clause, which seeks to put into primary legislation a carbon compliance standard for new homes from January 2018. The proposed carbon compliance levels are well intentioned—we all share the desire to see energy-efficient homes built that help to reduce carbon emissions and fuel bills—but the new clause is a step too far at this time. I listened very carefully to all the comments and, as the noble
Baroness, Lady Maddock, pointed out, this issue has certainly been much debated in this Chamber in recent months.
Over the last Parliament, we implemented significant strengthening of the energy performance standards for new homes—a 30% improvement on requirements before 2010. These standards are reducing energy bills by £200 annually on average for a new home and saving carbon. At this stage, we need to give the homebuilding industry breathing space to build the highly energy-efficient homes already required by the recent changes to building regulations, and I will say more about that in a moment.