I thank noble Lords who have participated in this debate and echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who summed it up incredibly well by saying that the Government’s arguments were not compelling. We have debated this at length in
the Chamber, and I am not going to go through the arguments again today, but I just want to raise two points.
First, the Federation of Master Builders was one of witnesses before the House of Lords National Policy for the Built Environment Committee. The federation said that it considered regulation a lesser issue in building new homes; the issue was access to finance and the cost of land. Although I hear that Mr Berry wishes to describe this House as being full of people who are “reckless” and show a “lack of realism”, that was not the evidence that he gave to a House of Lords Select Committee in October last year.
Secondly, we do not have to listen just to housebuilders. Of course we have to do that, which is why we sought to show at length in Committee that our amendment would not affect the viability of the houses we desperately need; but we have to listen also to the voices of home owners who will save money on their energy bills through this amendment, and to future generations, who need us now to start getting serious about tackling our greenhouse gas emissions. On that basis, I most assuredly wish to test the opinion of the House.