My Lords, in my remarks, I went out of my way to praise the current Government for the promises and commitments they have made in this area. I will go further and say that I will praise the current Government for at least some of the commitments they have made to provide the funding for the work to be carried out. But I just say to the Minister that it is the industry that will actually deliver, not the Government. We therefore need to consider what the industry needs to ensure that it can deliver.
The industry has said that it wants these targets, promises and commitments put into primary legislation to give it the confidence to carry out the investment, buy the equipment and do the training to enable the work to be carried out. It has been let down time and again by Governments of all political persuasions, with a string of projects that sound almost the same—the green deal, the green this, the green whatever—which have always failed and have not been followed through. The industry has had enough; it has made that very clear. It wants the firm commitments put into legislation. The Business Minister, Mr Kwarteng, believes in targets; he has said so on many occasions. I fail to understand why the Government will not put this one specific issue into legislation.
We will have an opportunity to raise these issues again at a later stage. Be assured that I intend to take every opportunity to press this matter but, in the mean- time, I beg leave to withdraw.