My Lords, I support the amendment. I, too, am sorry that the Government have not accepted the compromise that has been brought forward from our previous discussion.
The Government’s reason for rejecting the amendment is that it would increase burdens on housebuilders and threaten delivery of the large number of new homes that is proposed, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, pointed out, how can this be true if 79,000 homes have already been built to this standard? The Scottish Government have adopted this standard; it is lower than the standard that has been adopted in London; and it is already being adopted by an increasing number of local authorities in their local plans. All that evidence seems to fly in the face of the Government’s objection. I find it hard to accept that it is a burden that the housebuilding industry would not be able to cope with and that it would threaten the delivery of new homes; the evidence on that just does not stack up.
We are offered instead a review. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, the problem with a review—we have the evidence, but let us say that we agree a review—is that we do not have a clear date for completing it nor a clear set of actions that will arise from it, and a review would not add to what is required under Article 4 of the 2010 energy performance of buildings directive. I hope that the Minister will give us some tighter commitments on the nature of the review that the Government are proposing. When will it be completed? Who will take part in it? What actions will flow from it? How does it go beyond what is required in the 2010 directive?
I do not want to reiterate the arguments that we have had, but we have not heard any argument throughout the passage of this Bill that says that this is not the right thing to do. We know that it is the right thing to do to cut our greenhouse gas emissions and to help to resolve the issues of fuel poverty. All the arguments
against it have been obstacles such as, “It’ll be too difficult. The industry won’t like it. It’s all going to need more analysis”—paralysis by analysis, as we often hear. We know that it is the right thing to do. We know that if we do not do it now, we will have to come back to those houses that have been built and retrofit them with improved carbon standards in the future. The Minister should give us as much hope as possible that the Government are really committed to cutting our greenhouse gas emissions through buildings as well as through other sources—in this case, through buildings—and she should go further than simply offering yet another review.